tihxaxy  of  trhe  trheolojical  Seminary 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 
PRESENTED  BY 

the  Estate  of 
Harold  McAfee  Robinson,  D.D. 

i.~* — i  \  ^ 

o 


LUKE   THE    PHYSICIAN 

AND  OTHER  STUDIES  IN  THE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGION 


WORKS  BY   THE   SAME   AUTHOR. 

The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire,  before  A.D.  170. 

With  Maps  and  Illustrations.     8vo,  12s. 

St.  Paul  the  TraTeller  and  the  Roman  Citizen.  8vo, 
loj.  6d. 

The  Cities  of  St.  Paul.     Illustrated.     8vo,  12s. 

Pauline  and  other  Studies.    8vo,  125, 

A  Historical  Commentary  on  St  Paul's  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians.     With  Maps.    8vo,  i2j. 

Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches  and  their  Place  in  the 
Plan  of  the  Apocalypse.     Illustrated.    8vo,  i2j. 

Was  Christ  Born  at  Bethlehem?  A  Study  in  the 
Credibility  of  St  Luke.      Crown  8vo,  55. 

The  Education  of  Christ:  Hill-side  RcTcries.  Crown 
8vo,  25.  6d. 

Impressions  of  Turkey.     Crown  8vo,  6s. 

Studies  in  the  History  and  Art  of  the  Eastern  Pro- 
vinces of  the  Roman  Empire.  Written  for  the 
Quatercentenary  of  the  University  of  Aberdeen,  by 
Seven  of  its  Graduates.  Edited  by  Sir  W.  M. 
Ramsay,  D.C.L.     205.  net. 


WORKS  BY  LADY  RAMSAY. 
Everyday  Life  in  Turkey.     Crown  8vo,  55. 
The  Romance  of  Elisavet     Crown  8vo,  55, 


London:  HODDER  &  STOUGHTON. 


PLATE  XXII. 


Old  Turkish  Art :  the  Door  of  the  SirtchaH  Mosque  in  Konia. 
Frontispiece.  See  p.  185. 


\^' 


LUKE    THE    PHYSICIAN 

AND    OTHER    STUDIES    IN    THE 
HISTORY    OF    RELIGION 


W.  M.  RAMSAY,  Kt.,  Hon.  D.C.L.,  etc. 


IV/TH  THIRTY-EIGHT  ILLUSTRATIONS 


HODDER    AND     STOUGHTON 

NEW  YORK 
GEORGE   H.   DORAN   COMPANY 


PREFACE 

The  papers  republished  in  this  volume  have  appeared 
in  various  Magazines,  Contemporary  Review,  Exposi- 
tor, Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society,  Geographical 
Journal,  to  the  editors  of  which  my  thanks  are  ten- 
dered. Most  of  them  have  been  profoundly  modified 
and  much  enlarged  ;  but  only  in  the  last,  which  is 
made  up  of  six  older  articles,  is  there  any  essential 
change  in  the  original  opinions.  Elsewhere,  the 
alterations  which  have  been  introduced  are  intended 
to  render  more  precise  and  emphatic  the  views 
formerly  stated.  Even  the  first  article,  which  has 
been  little  changed  in  expression,  has  been  greatly 
enlarged.  Only  in  the  sixth  article  (first  published  in 
1882)  have  the  additions  been  indicated. 

The  last  article  stands  in  much  need  of  help  and 
criticism  from  more  experienced  scholars.  In  writing 
it  I  felt  the  depths  of  my  ignorance  ;  but  the  first 
steps  had  to  be  taken  in  the  subject.  The  most 
striking  result  was  reached  at  the  last  stage,  and  is 
stated  only  in  a  footnote  and  the  Table  of  Contents 
and  Index.  The  pagan  temple-grave  became  the 
Christian  church-grave  or  memorion ;  and  the  pagan 


vi  Preface 

6vpa  appears  as  the  church  doorway  on  gravestones 
in  Isauria.  The  great  Anatolian  writers  of  the  fourth 
century  are  full  of  information,  which  yet  remains  to 
be  collected  and  valued.  Professor  Holl's  Amphi- 
lochius  von  Iconium  is  the  one  great  modern  study  in 
its  department.  The  humble  essays  which  conclude 
this  volume  and  my  former  series  of  Pauline  and 
other  Studies  tread  in  his  footsteps  ;  but  I  am  mindful 
of  the  poet's  advice,  longe  sequere  et  vestigia  se?nper 
adora. 

I  am  indebted  for  the  very  interesting  series  of 
photographs,  not  merely  to  my  wife,  but  also  to  Miss 
Gertrude  Lowthian  Bell,  Mr.  J.  G.  C.  Anderson* 
Senior  Censor  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  and  Pro- 
fessor T.  Callander,  Queen's  University,  Canada;  and 
I  am  grateful  to  them  for  permitting  me  to  adorn  my 
preface  with  the  names  of  such  experienced  and  suc- 
cessful explorers,  and  my  book  with  views  so  skil- 
fully taken  in  spite  of  the  ink-black  shadows  cast  by 
that  pitiless  sun.  ^ 

The  Index  is  largely  the  work  of  my  wife. 

W.  M.  RAMSAY. 

Aberdeen,  311*  October,  1908. 


CONTENTS 
I 

TKCtK 

Luke  the  Physician i 

II 

The  Oldest  Written  Gospel 69 

III 

Asia  Minor:  the  Country  and  its  Religion       .         .103 

/  IV 

The  Orthodox  Church  in  the  Byzantine  Empire  141 

V 

The  Peasant   God  :   the  Creation,  Destruction  an  j 

Restoration  of  Agriculture  in  Asia  Minor        .     169 

VI 

The  Religion  of  the  Hittite  Sculptures  at  Boghaz- 

Keui        .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .199 

VII 

The  Morning  Star  and  the  Chronology  of  the  Life 

OK  Christ 217 


viii  Contents 


VIII 

PAGE 

A  Criticism  of  Recent  Research  regarding  the  New 

Testament 247 

IX 

The  Historical  Geography  of  the  Holy  Land  .         .     267 

X 

St.  Paul's  Use  of  Metaphors  drawn  from  Greek  and 

Roman  Life 283 

XI 

The   Date   and  Authorship   of  the  Epistle  to   the 

Hebrews 299 

XII 

The  Church  of  Lycaonia  in  the  Fourth  Century  329-410 

Introduction  :     The    District    and    its    Ecclesiastical 

Organisation.         .         .         .         .         .         -331 

I.  Chronological  Arrangement  of  the  Documents  .     334 

II.  A  Bishop  of  the  Church   Reorganisation  after 

Diocletian        .         .         .         .         .         -339 

III.  The  Presbyters :  their  Relation  to  Bishops  and 

Deacons  .         .         .         .         .         -351 

IV.  Crosses  and  Christian  Monograms  as  the  Origin 

of  Ornament  (also  No.  42)        .         .         .368 

V.  The  Church  Manager  or  Oikonomos         .         .     369 


Contents  ix 

PAGE 

VI.  The  Church  in  the  Decoration  of  Tombs:  the 
Christian  Grave  in  Isauria  was  a  Miniature 
Church  .         .         .         .         ,         .         -370 

VII.  Distinction  of  Clergy  and  Laity:  its  Early  Stage  387 

VIII.  Deaconesses  .         .         ...        .         .         .  393, 

IX.  Martyrs 395 

X.  Curses  on  Christian  Graves      ....  395 

XI.  Virgins  or  Parthenoi  in  the  Lycaonian  Church  .  397 

XII.  Heretic  Sects 400 

XIII.  High-Priest  of  God 403 

XIV.  Christian  Physicians         .....  403 
XV.  Quotations  from  the  New  Testament        366  and  406 

XVI.  Slaves  of  God 407 

Index .         .411 


ILLUSTRATIONS 
PLATES 

TO  PACE 

PAGE 

I.  On  the  Byzantine  MiUtary  Road :  the  Pass  leading 

to  Dorylaion  .         .         .         .         .         .         .106 

II.  On  the  Central  Trade  Route:  the  Source  of  the 

Maeander       .         .         .         .         .         .         .106 

III.  On  the  Central  Trade  Route :  the  Falls  at  Hiera- 

polis      .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .     108 

IV.  The  City,  Rock  and  Castle  of  Kara-Hissar     .         .     112 
V.  The  City,  Rock  and  Castle  of  Sivri-Hissar      .         .     116 

VI.  Roman  Milestone  on  the  Syrian  Route  .         .         .116 

VII.  Archaic  Sepulchral  Monument  in  Phrygia :  Novem- 
ber weather    .         .         .         .  .         .120 

VIII.  The  Tomb  of  King  Midas :  a  Phr}'gian  Holy  Place     124 

IX.  The  Grave  of  an  Ancient  Phrygian  Chief        .         .128 

X.  The  Broken  Grave  of  an  Ancient  Phrygian  Chief   .     132 

XI.  Phrygian  Rock-tomb  of  the  Roman  Time       .         .136 

XII.  The  Site  of  Pisidian  Antioch  and  the  Sultan- Dagh     14c 


xii  Illustrations 


TO  FACE 
PAGE 


XIII.  The  Monasteries  and  Churches  at  Deghile,  on  the 

Mountain  above  Barata  .         .         .         .         .140 

XIV.  Church  and  Memorial  Chapel  on  the  Summit  of  the 

Kara-Dagh :  from  the  west      .         .         .         -158 

XV.  Church  on  the  Summit  of  the  Kara-Dagh :   from 

the  south-east         .         .         .         .         .         .158 

XVI.  The  Throne  of  the  Anatolian  God,  near  Barata      .     160 

XVII.  Ruins  of  Double-arched  West  Door  of  Church  at 

at  Bin-Bir-Kilisse  (Barata)       .         .         .         .160 

XVIII.  Monastery  at  Deghile  on  the  Mountain  above 
Barata,  showing  brickwork  used  as  ornament 
in  a  stone  building        .         .         .         .         .124 

XIX.  Church  at  Deghile  on  the  Mountain  above  Barata : 

North  Arcades  of  the  Nave      .         .         .         .164 

XX.  Church  at  Barata :  South  Arcades  of  the  Nave  and 

Apse 164 

XXI.  The  God  and  the  King  at  Ibriz     .         .         .         .174 

XXII.  Early  Turkish  Art :  Door  of  the  Sirtchali  Mosque 

in  Konia        .....  Frontispiece 

XXIII.  Early  Turkish  Art :  Zazadin-Khan  near  Konia        .     192 

XXIV.  The  Gate  of  the  Virgin-Goddess :  looking  over  the 

Limnai .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .192 


Illustrations  xiii 


FIGURES   IN   THE   TEXT 

PAGE 

1.  Plan  of  the  Entrance  to  the  Hittite  Palace  at  Euyuk     .     207 

2.  Relief  at  Euyuk.     Procession  of  Worshippers,  headed 

by  the  Chief  Priest  and  Priestess,  approaching  the 
Goddess       ........     208 

3.  The  Warrior  Goddess  of  the  Hittites  with  her  Favourite 

and  Priest     .         .         .  .         .         .         .210 

4.  The  Chief  Priest  of  the  Goddess  of  Ephesus         .         .213 

5.  Apollo  the  Pastoral  God  of  Lystra  on  a  Third-century 

Votive  Relief .216 

6.  The  Christian  Star  as  a  Decorative  Dove  and  Leaf  on 

the  Grave  of  a  Third-century  Christian  Virgin  at 
Nova  Isaura  .         .         .         .         .         .         .     328 

7.  The  Symbol  of  the  Cross  as  a  Decorative  Element  on  a 

Lycaonian  Grave  .......     330 

8.  Christian  Architectural  Decoration  on  the  Grave  of  a 

Physician  at  Nova  Isaura 330 

9.  The  Monogram  of  Christ  as  a  Decorative  Element  on 

a  Lycaonian  Grave         .         .         .         .         .         .368 

10.  Architectural  Decoration  (the  entrance  of  the  church) 

on  the  Grave  of  a  Third-century  Bishop  at  Nova 
Isaura -371 

11.  Christian  Architectural  Decoration  and  Church  Screen 

on  the  Grave  of  a  Bishop  at  Nova  Isaura,  a.d.  300       379 


xiv  Illustrations 


12.  Christian  Architectural  Decoration  on  the  Grave  of  a 

Fourth-century  Deacon  at  Nova  Isaura    .         .         .     383 

13.  Christian  Architectural  Decoration  on  the  Grave  of  a 

Fourth-century  Bishop  at  Nova  Isaura     .         .         .     384 

14.  Anthropomorphic    Lycaonian     Christian    Grave-stone, 

showing  Cross  and  Rosette  ( \Ionogram)  as  corres- 
ponding Decorative  Elements         .         .         ,         .410 


ERRATA   AND  ADDENDA. 

P.  109,  1.  6, /or  "  the  Frontispiece"  read  "  Plate  III". 
P.  203,  note,  for  "  Hermann  "  read  "  Humann  ". 
P.  273,  note  I,  read  "  Quarterly  Statement  for  1895  ". 
P.  281,  note  7.,  for  200  read  250-5. 

P.  328,  fig.  6, /or  "  symbol  of  the  Cross  "  read  "  Christian  Star". 
Pp.  340, 1.  17,  341,  1.  I.     This  reading  and  interpretation  will  be  defended  in 
Expositor,  December,  1908. 


I. 

LUKE  THE  PHYSICIAN, 


I. 

LUKE  THE  PHYSICrAN. 

It  has  for  some  time  been  evident  to  all  New  Testament 
scholars  who  were  not  hidebound  in  old  prejudice  that  there 
must  be  a  new  departure  in  Lukan  criticism.  The  method 
of  dissection  had  failed.  When  a  real  piece  of  living  litera- 
ture has  to  be  examined,  it  is  false  method  to  treat  it  as  a 
corpse,  and  cut  it  in  pieces :  only  a  mess  can  result.  The 
work  is  alive,  and  must  be  handled  accordingly.  Criticism 
for  a  time  examined  the  work  attributed  to  Luke  like  a 
corpse,  and  the  laborious  autopsy  was  fruitless.  Nothing 
in  the  whole  history  of  literary  criticism  has  been  so  waste 
and  dreary  as  great  part  of  the  modern  critical  study  of 
Luke.  As  Professor  Harnack  says  on  p.  87  of  his  new 
book,^  "All  faults  that  have  been  made  in  New  Testament 
criticism  are  gathered  as  it  were  to  a  focus  in  the  criticism 
of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  ". 

The  question  "  Shall  we  hear  evidence  or  not  ?  "  presents 
itself  at  the  threshold  of  every  investigation  into  the  New 
Testament,^  Modern  criticism  for  a  time  entered  on  its  task 
with  a  decided  negative.     Its  mind  was  made  up,  and    it 

^Lukas  der  Artzt  der  Verfasser  des  dritten  Evangeliums  und  der  Apostel- 
geschichie,  Leipzig,  Hinxichs,  1906.  In  order  to  avoid  frequent  reiteration  of 
the  personal  name,  we  shall  speak,  as  a  general  rule,  of  "  the  Author  "  simply. 

*The  bearing  of  this  question  is  discussed  in  the  opening  paper  of  the 
writer's  Pauline  Studies,  1906. 

(3) 


4  I.  Luke 

would  not  listen  to  evidence  on  a  matter  that  was  already 
decided.  But  the  results  of  recent  exploration  made  this 
attitude  untenable.  So  long  as  the  vivid  accuracy  of  Acts 
xxvii.,  which  no  critic  except  the  most  incompetent  failed 
to  perceive  and  admit,  was  supposed  to  be  confined  to  that 
one  chapter,  it  was  possible  to  explain  this  passage  as  an 
isolated  and  solitary  fragment  in  the  patchwork  book.  But 
when  it  was  demonstrated  that  the  same  lifelike  accuracy 
characterised  the  whole  of  the  travels,  the  theory  became 
impossible.  Evidence  must  be  admitted.  All  minds  that 
are  sensitive  to  new  impressions,  all  minds  that  are  able  to 
learn,  have  become  aware  of  this.  The  result  is  visible  in 
the  book  which  we  have  now  before  us.  Professor  Harnack 
is  willing  to  hear  evidence.  The  class  of  evidence  that 
chiefly  appeals  to  him  is  not  geographical,  not  external,  not 
even  historical  in  the  widest  sense,  but  literary  and  linguistic ; 
and  this  he  finds  clear  enough  to  make  him  alter  his  former 
views,  and  come  to  the  decided  conclusion  that  the  Third 
Gospel  and  the  Acts  are  a  historical  work  in  two  books,^ 
written,  as  the  tradition  says,  by  Luke,  a  physician,  Paul's 
companion  in  travel  and  associate  in  evangelistic  work.  This 
conclusion  he  regards  as  a  demonstrated  fact  {sicker  nach- 
gewiesene  Tatsache,  p.  87).  It  does  not,  however,  lead  him 
to  consider  that  Luke's  history  is  true.  He  argues  very 
ingeniously  against  attaching  any  high  degree  of  trust- 
worthiness to  the  work,  and  hardly  even  concedes  that  the 
early  date  which  he  assigns  to  it  entails  the  admission  that  it 
is  much  more  trustworthy  than  the  champions  of  its  later 
date  would  or  could  allow.  That  is  the  only  impression 
which  I   can  gather  (see   below,  p.  32)  from  the  Authoi^s 

'  He  hints  at  the  possibility  that  a  third  book  may  have  been  intended  by 
Lulie,  but  never  vwittcn.    See  below,  p.  27. 


the  Physician  5 

language  in  this  book.  On  the  other  hand,  in  a  notice  of 
his  own  book  {Selbstanzeige)}  he  speaks  far  more  favourably 
about  the  trustworthiness  and  credibility  of  Luke,  as  being 
generally  in  a  position  to  acquire  and  transmit  reliable  infor- 
mation, and  as  having  proved  himself  able  to  take  advantage 
of  his  position.  I  cannot  but  feel  that  there  is  a  certain  want 
of  harmony  here,  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Author  was 
gradually  working  his  way  to  a  new  plane  of  thought.  His 
later  opinion  is  more  favourable. 

Some  years  ago  I  reviewed  Professor  McGiffert's  argu- 
ments on  the  Acts.2  The  American  professor  also  had  felt 
compelled  by  the  geographical  and  historical  evidence  to 
abandon  in  part  the  older  criticism.  He  also  admitted  that 
the  Acts  is  more  trustworthy  than  previous  critics  allowed ; 
he  also  was  of  opinion  that  it  was  not  thoroughly  trustworthy, 
but  was  a  mixture  of  truth  and  error ;  he  also  saw  that  it  is 
a  living  piece  of  literature  written  by  one  author.  But  from 
the  fact  that  Acts  was  not  thoroughly  trustworthy,  he 
inferred  that  it  could  not  be  the  work  of  a  companion  and 
friend  of  the  Apostle  Paul ;  and  he  has  no  pity  for  the 
erroneous  idea  that  the  Acts  could  fail  to  be  trustworthy  if  it 
had  been  written  by  the  friend  of  Paul.  I  concluded  with  the 
words :  "  Dr.  McGiffert  has  destroyed  that  error,  if  an  error 
can  be  destroyed ".  But  what  is  to  Professor  McGiffert 
inadmissible  is  the  view  that  Professor  Harnack  champions. 

The  careful  and  methodical  studies  of  the  language  of 
Luke  by  Mr.  Hobart  ^  and  Mr.  Hawkins  *  have  been  thor- 
oughly used  by  the  Author.     He  mentions  that  Mr.  Haw- 

'  In  the  Theologische  Liter aturzeitung  (edited  by  himself  and  Professor 
Schurer),  7th  July,  1906,  p.  404. 

*The  review  is  republished  in  Pauline  Studies,  1906,  p.  321. 
'Medical  Language  «/ St.  Lukt,  Dublin,  1882. 
*Horae  Synopticae,  i8gg. 


6  I.  Luke 

kins  seems  to  be  almost  unknown  in  Germany  (p.  19),  and 
expresses  the  opinion  (p.  10)  that  Mr.  Hobart's  book  would 
have  produced  more  effect,  if  he  had  confined  himself  to 
the  essential  and  had  not  overloaded  his  book  with  collec- 
tions and  comparisons  that  often  prove  nothing.  I  doubt 
if  that  is  the  reason  that  Mr.  Hobart's  admirable  and  con- 
clusive demonstration  has  produced  so  little  effect  in  Ger- 
many. The  real  reason  is  that  the  German  scholars,  with  a 
few  exceptions,  have  not  read  it.  That  many  of  his  ex- 
aminations of  words  prove  nothing,  Mr.  Hobart  was  quite 
aware;  but  he  intentionally,  and,  as  I  venture  to  think, 
rightly,  gave  a  full  statement  of  his  comparison  of  Luke's 
language  with  that  of  the  medical  Greek  writers.  It  is  the 
completeness  with  which  he  has  performed  his  task  that 
produces  such  effect  on  those  who  read  his  book.  He  has 
pursued  to  the  end  almost  every  line  of  investigation,  and 
shown  what  words  do  not  afford  any  evidence  as  well  as 
what  words  may  be  relied  upon  for  evidence.  The  Author 
says  that  those  who  merely  glance  through  the  pages  of  Mr. 
Hobart's  book  are  almost  driven  over  to  the  opposite 
opinion  (as  they  find  so  many  investigations  that  prove 
nothing).  This  description  of  the  common  German  "  critical " 
way  of  glancing  at  or  entirely  neglecting  works  which  are  the 
most  progressive  and  conclusive  investigations  of  modem 
times  suggests  much.  These  so-called  "  critics  "  do  not  read 
a  book  whose  results  they  disapprove.  The  method  of 
studying  facts  is  not  to  their  taste,  when  they  see  that  it 
leads  to  a  conclusion  which  they  have  definitely  rejected 
beforehand. 

The  importance  of  this  book  lies  in  its  convincing  demon- 
stration of  the  perfect  unity  of  authorship  throughout  the 
whole  of  the  Third  Gospel  and  the  Acts.    These  are  a  history 


the  Physician  7 

in  two  books.  All  difference  between  parts  like  Luke  i.  5- 
ii.  52  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  "  We  "-sections  of  Acts 
on  the  other  hand — to  take  the  piost  divergent  parts — is  a 
mere  trifle  in  comparison  with  the  complete  identity  in 
language,  vocabulary,  intentions,  interests  and  method  of 
narration.  The  writer  is  the  same  throughout.  He  was,  of 
course,  dependent  on  information  gained  from  others :  the 
Author  is  disposed  to  allow  considerable  scope  to  oral 
information  in  addition  to  the  various  certain  or  probable 
written  sources  ;  but  Luke  treated  his  written  authorities  with 
considerable  freedom  as  regards  style  and  even  choice  of 
details,  and  impressed  his  own  personality  distinctly  even  on 
those  parts  in  which  he  most  closely  follows  a  written  source. 

This  alone  carries  Lukan  criticism  a  long  step  forwards, 
and  sets  it  on  a  new  and  higher  plane.  Never  has  the  unity 
and  character  of  the  book  been  demonstrated  so  convincingly 
and  conclusively.  The  step  is  made  and  the  plane  is  reached 
by  the  method  which  is  practised  in  other  departments  of 
literary  criticism,  viz.,  by  dispassionate  investigation  of  the 
work,  and  by  discarding  fashionable  a  priori  theories. 

Especially  weighty,  in  the  Author's  judgment,  is  the  evi- 
dence afforded  by  the  medical  interest  and  knowledge,  which 
mark  almost  every  part  of  the  work  alike.  The  writer  of 
this  history  was  a  physician,  and  that  fact  is  apparent  through- 
out. The  investigations  of  Mr,  Hobart  supply  all  the  evi- 
dence— I  think  the  word  "all,"  without  "almost,"  may  be 
used  in  this  case — on  which  the  Author  relies.  Never  was  a 
case  in  which  one  book  so  completely  exhausts  the  subject 
and  presents  itself  as  final,  to  be  used  and  not  to  be  supple- 
mented even  by  Professor  Harnack.  It  is  doubtless  only  by 
a  slip,  but  certainly  a  regrettable  slip,  that  the  Author,  in  his 
notice  of  his  own  book  published  in  the  Theologische  Litera- 


8  I.  Luke 

turzeitung,  makes  no  reference  to  Mr.  Hobart,  though  he 
mentions  other  scholars  from  whose  work  he  has  profited. 

The  Author  has  up  to  a  certain  point  employed  the  plain, 
simple  method  of  straightforward  unprejudiced  investigation 
into  the  historical  work  which  forms  the  subject  of  his  study, 
a  method  which  has  not  been  favoured  much  by  the  so- 
called  critical  scholars  of  recent  time.  So  far  as  he  follows 
this  simple  method,  which  we  who  study  principally  other 
departments  of  literature  are  in  the  habit  of  employing,  his 
study  is  most  instructive  and  complete.  But  he  does  not 
follow  it  all  through ;  multa  tainen  siiberunt  priscae  vestigia 
fraudis.  If  we  read  his  book,  we  shall  find  several  examples 
of  the  fashionable  critical  method  of  a  priori  rules  and  pre- 
possessions as  to  what  must  be  or  must  not  be  permitted. 
These  examples  are  almost  all  of  the  one  kind.  Wherever 
anything  occurs  that  savours  of  the  marvellous  in  the  estima- 
tion of  the  polished  and  courteous  scholar,  sitting  in  his  well- 
ordered  library  and  contemplating  the  world  through  its 
windows,  it  must  be  forthwith  set  aside  as  unworthy  of 
attention  and  as  mere  delusion.  That  method  of  studying 
the  first  century  was  the  method  of  the  later  nineteenth 
century.  I  venture  to  think  that  it  will  not  be  the  method 
of  the  twentieth  century.  If  you  have  ever  lived  in  Asia  you 
know  that  a  great  religion  does  not  establish  itself  without 
some  unusual  accompaniments.  The  marvellous  result  is  not 
achieved  without  some  marvellous  preliminaries. 

Professor  Harnack  stands  on  the  border  between  the  nine- 
teenth and  the  twentieth  century.  His  book  shows  that  he 
is  to  a  certain  degree  sensitive  of  and  obedient  to  the  new 
spirit ;  but  he  is  only  partially  so.  The  nineteenth  century 
critical  method  was  false,  and  is  already  antiquated.  A  fine 
old  crusty,  musty,  dusty  specimen  of  it  is  appended  to  the 


the  Physician  9 

Author's  Selbstanzeige  by  Professor  Schiirer,  who  fills  more 
than  three  columns  of  the  Theologische  Literaturzeitung^  7th 
July,  1906,  with  a  protest  against  the  results  of  new  methods 
and  a  declaration  of  his  firm  resolution  to  see  nothing,  and 
allow  no  other  to  see  anything,  that  he  has  not  been  ac- 
customed to  see :  "  These  be  thy  gods,  O  Israel ". 

The  first  century  could  find  nothing  real  and  true  that  was 
not  accompanied  by  the  marvellous  and  the  "supernatural". 
The  nineteenth  century  could  find  nothing  real  and  true  that 
was.  Which  view  was  right,  and  which  wrong  ?  Was  either 
complete?  Of  these  two  questions,  the  second  alone  is  pro- 
fitable at  the  present.  Both  views  were  right — in  a  certain 
way  of  contemplating ;  both  views  were  wrong — in  a  certain 
way.  Neither  was  complete.  At  present,  as  we  are  strug- 
gling to  throw  off  the  fetters  which  impeded  thought  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  it  is  most  important  to  free  ourselves 
from  its  prejudices  and  narrowness.  The  age  and  the  people, 
of  whatever  nationality  they  be,  whose  most  perfect  expression 
and  greatest  hero  was  Bismarck,  are  a  dangerous  guide  for 
the  twentieth  century.  In  no  age  has  brute  force  and  mere 
power  to  kill  been  so  exclusively  regarded  as  the  one  great 
aim  of  a  nation,  and  the  one  justification  to  a  place  in  the 
Parliament  of  Man,  as  in  Europe  during  the  latter  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century  ;  and  in  no  age  and  country  has  the  out- 
look upon  the  world  been  so  narrow  and  so  rigid  among  the 
students  of  history  and  ancient  letters.  Those  who  study 
religion  owe  it  to  the  progress  of  science  that  they  can  begin 
now  to  understand  how  hard  and  lifeless  their  old  outlook  was. 
But  we  who  were  brought  up  in  the  nineteenth  century  can 
hardly  shake  off  our  prejudices  or  go  out  into  the  light.  We 
can  only  get  a  distant  view  of  the  new  hope.  The  Author 
is  one  of  the  first  to  force  his  way  out  into  the  light  of  day  \ 


lo  I.  Luke 

but  his  eyes  are  still  dazzled,  and  his  vision  not  quite  perfect. 
He  sees  that  Luke  always  found  the  marvellous  quite  as 
much  in  his  own  immediate  surroundings,  where  he  was  a 
witness  and  an  actor,  as  in  the  earliest  period  of  his  history ; 
but  he  only  infers,  to  put  it  in  coarse  language,  "  how  blind 
Luke  was  ". 

What  was  the  truth?  How  far  was  Luke  right?  I 
cannot  say.  Consult  the  men  of  the  twentieth  century.  I 
was  trained  in  the  nineteenth,  and  cannot  see  clearly.  But 
of  one  thing  I  am  certain :  in  so  far  as  Professor  Harnack 
condemns  Luke's  point  of  view  and  rules  it  out  in  this 
unheeding  way,  he  is  wrong.  In  so  far  as  he  is  willing 
to  hear  evidence,  he  comes  near  being  right. 

Practically  all  the  argument,  in  the  sense  of  facts  affording 
evidence,  stated  by  the  Author  has  long  been  familiar  to 
us  in  England  and  Scotland.  What  is  new  and  interesting 
and  valuable  is  the  ratiocination,  the  theorising,  and  the 
personal  point  of  view  in  the  book  under  review.  We  study 
it  to  understand  Professor  Harnack  quite  as  much  as  to 
understand  Luke :  and  the  study  is  well  worth  the  time  and 
work.  Personally,  I  feel  specially  interested  in  the  question 
of  Luke's  nationality.  On  this  the  Author  has  some  admirable 
and  suggestive  pages. 

That  Luke  was  a  Hellene  is  quite  clear  to  the  Author. 
He  repeats  this  often  ;  and  if  once  or  twice  his  expression  is 
a  little  uncertain,  as  if  he  were  leaving  another  possibility 
open,  that  is  only  from  the  scientific  desire  to  keep  well 
within  the  limits  of  what  the  evidence  permits.  He  has  no 
real  doubt.  The  reasons  on  which  he  lays  stress  are  utterly 
different  from  those  which  have  been  mentioned  by  myself 
in  support  of  the  same  conclusion,  but  certainly  quite  as 
strong  if  not  stronger ;  it  is  a  mere  difference  of  idiosyncrasy 


the  physician  1 1 

which  makes  him  lay  stress  on  those  that  spring  from  the 
thought  and  the  inner  temperament  of  Luke,  while  I  have 
spoken  most  of  those  which  indicate  Luke's  outlook  on  the 
world  and  his  attitude  towards  external  nature.  But  just 
as  I  was  quite  conscious  of  the  other  class  and  merely 
emphasised  those  which  seemed  to  have  been  omitted  from 
previous  discussions  of  the  subject/  so  the  Author's  silence 
about  the  class  which  I  have  mentioned  need  not  be  taken 
as  proof  that  he  is  insensible  to  such  reasons.  But  those 
reasons  appeal  most  to  the  mind  of  one  who  has  lived  long 
in  the  country  and  has  felt  the  sense  impressions  from  whose 
sphere  they  are  taken.  Perhaps  they  are  apt  to  seem 
fanciful  to  the  scholar  who  has  spent  his  life  in  the  library 
and  the  study. 

The  sentimental  tone  and  the  frequent  allusion  to  weeping, 
which  is  characteristic  of  Luke,  is  characteristic  also  of  the 
Hellene :  dort  unci  hier  sind  die  Trdnen  hellenische  (p.  25). 
Mark  and  Matthew  have  hardly  any  weeping :  there  is  more 
in  John ;  but  Luke  far  surpasses  John.  Such  ideas  and 
words  as  "injury"  (an  inadequate  translation  of  the  Greek 
v^pi^,  Acts  xxvii.  10,  21),  "the  barbarians," ^  are  char- 
acteristically Greek.  "  Justice  did  not  suffer  him  to  live  "  (Acts 
xxviii.  4)  is  exactly  the  word  of  a  Hellenic  poet :  the  words 
are  put  in  the  mouth  of  the  Maltese  barbarians,  but  they  are 
only  the  expression  in  Greek  by  Luke  of  their  remarks  in 
barbaric  speech  and  their  attitude  to  Paul ;  and  they  are  the 
Hellenised  thought  of  a  Hellene.  To  Pindar  or  Aeschylus 
Justice  and  Zeus  are  almost  equivalent  ideas. 

In  an  extremely  interesting  passage,  p.  100  f.,  the  Author 
sketches   the  character  of  Luke's  religion.     He  recognises. 

>  St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  pp.  21,  205  ff. 

*Both  are  confined  to  Paul  and  Luke  in  the  New  Testament. 


12  I.  Luke 

with  correct  insight  the  fundamental  Hellenism  of  Luke's 
Christianity.  To  put  the  matter  from  a  different  point  of 
view,  Luke  had  been  a  Hellenic  pagan,  and  could  not  fully 
comprehend  either  Judaism  or  Christianity.  As  in  Ignatius, 
so  in  Luke,  we  see  the  clear  traces  of  his  original  pagan 
thought,^  and  we  detect  the  early  stage  of  the  process  which 
was  destined  to  work  itself  out  in  the  paganisation  of  the 
Church.  The  world  was  not  able  to  comprehend  Paulinism, 
and  the  result  of  this  inability  to  understand  the  spiritual 
power  was  the  degrading  of  spiritual  ideas  into  pagan  personal 
deities  conceived  as  saints.  It  was  not  possible  for  even 
Luke  to  spring  at  once  to  the  level  of  Paulinism  ;  that  would 
need  at  the  best  more  than  a  single  life,  even  supposing  that 
there  had  been  unbroken  progress.  As  it  happened,  there 
supervened  a  degeneration  in  the  level  of  thought  and  com- 
prehension, after  the  first  impulse  communicated  by  Jesus 
had  apparently  exhausted  itself,  until  the  Christian  idea  had 
time  slowly  to  mould  the  world's  mind  and  impart  to  it  the 
power  of  comprehending  Paulinism  better.  After  the  first 
generation  of  Pauline  contemporaries  and  pupils  had  died, 
we  see  little  proof  that  Paulinism  was  a  living  power  until 
we  come  down  to  Augustine,  and  then  it  appeared  only  for 
a  moment. 

I  confess,  however,  that  the  Author,  while  he  catches  this 
undeniable  characteristic  of  Luke's  religious  comprehension, 
seems  to  miss  the  elements  in  his  thought  that  were  capable 
of  higher  development.     These  were  only  germs,  and  the 

'  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  the  Author  expresses  exactly  this  opinion  in 
this  form  about  Luke ;  he  pictures  Luke's  idea  as  a  definite  hard  fact ;  to  me 
it  always  comes  natural  to  regard  a  man's  ideas  as  a  process  of  growth,  and 
to  look  before  and  after  the  moment.  The  Author  isolates  the  moment.  On 
Ignatius  see  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  p.  159  ft". 


the  Physician  13 

weakness  of  the  Author's  view  seems  to  be  that  he  recog- 
nises only  the  fully  articulated  opinion  and  is  sometimes  blind 
to  ideas  which  were  merely  inchoate.  Hence  I  cannot  but 
regard  the  estimate  (on  p.  loi)  of  Luke's  Paulinism,  i.e.,  of 
his  failure  to  grasp  Paulinism,  as  too  hard  and  too  thin. 

I  may  give  an  example  to  illustrate  what  I  think  was  the 
case.  Like  the  Author,  I  think  that  the  story  in  Luke  i.,  ii.,  is 
dependent  on  an  oral  not  a  written  report ;  but  unlike  him, 
I  think  that  this  report  comes  from  Mary  herself.^  Like 
Professor  Sanday,  I  should  conjecture  that  it  came  through 
one  of  the  women  named  by  Luke  elsewhere.  Here  we 
have  a  narrative  which  comes  from  a  Hebrew  source,  from  a 
woman  thinking  in  Hebraic  fashion,  one  whose  language  was 
saturated  with  Hebraic  imagery.  This  narrative  Luke  has 
transmitted  to  us  in  a  form  which  clearly  shows  its  Hebrew 
origin,  and  equally  clearly  shows  that  it  had  been  re-expressed 
in  Lukan  language  (as  the  Author  has  proved)  and  trans- 
formed by  Luke.  But  also,  I  venture  to  believe,  it  has  been 
re-thought  out  of  the  Hebraic  into  the  Greek  fashion.  The 
messenger  of  God,  who  revealed  to  Mary  the  Divine  will  and 
purpose,  becomes  to  Luke  the  winged  personal  being  who, 
like  Iris  or  Hermes,  communicates  the  will  and  purpose  of 
God.  Exactly  what  is  the  difference  between  the  original 
narrative  and  the  Greek  translation,  I  am  not  able  to  say  or 
to  speculate;  but  that  there  was  a  more  anthropomorphic 
picture  of  the  messenger  in  Luke's  mind  than  there  was  in 
Mary's  I  feel  no  doubt.  Yet  I  believe  that  Luke  was  trans- 
lating as  exactly  as  he  could  into  Greek  the  account  which 
he  had  heard.  He  expresses  and  thinks  as  a  Greek  that 
which  was  thought  and  expressed  by  a  Hebrew. 

^Christ  Born  in  Bethlehem,  p.  74  ff. 


14  I-  Luke 

But,  with  this  qualification,  the  passage  on  p.  lOO  f.  appears 
to  me  to  be  most  illuminative  and  remunerative.  As  regards 
the  Hellenism  of  Luke  the  difference  between  us  is  one 
merely  of  degree.  We  are  really  trying  to  say  the  same 
thing,  but  expressing  it  through  the  colouring  and  transform- 
ing medium  of  our  different  personalities,  and  I  too  imper- 
fectly. The  really  important  matter  is  this.  In  the  first 
place,  the  Author  sees  clearly  and  perfectly  and  finally  the 
first  century  character  of  Luke's  thought :  "  He  has  come 
into  personal  relations  with  the  first  Christians,  with  Paul " 
(p.  103).  In  the  second  place,  the  Author's  view  that  Luke 
was  so  incapable  of  comprehending  the  spirit  of  Christianity 
— for  that  is  inevitably  implied  in  his  exposition,  pp.  100- 
102 — only  brings  out  into  clearer  light  Luke's  inability  to 
evolve  from  his  inner  consciousness  the  picture  of  Jesus 
which  looks  out  in  such  exquisite  outline  from  his  historical 
work.  The  picture  was  given  to,  and  not  made  by,  Luke ;  and 
the  Author  himself  shows  plainly  how  it  was  given  him.  He 
had  intimate  relations  with  some  of  those  who  had  known 
Jesus,  and  from  that,  more  than  from  the  early  written  ac- 
counts to  which  he  also  had  access,  he  derived  his  conception. 
Where  he  altered  this  conception,  it  could  only  be  to  introduce 
his  own  poorer,  less  lofty  ideas,  and  to  betray  his  want  of  real 
comprehension.  I  do  not  at  all  deny  that  there  are  in  his 
Gospel  (as  there  are  in  the  other  Gospels)  traces  of  the  age 
and  the  thoughts  amid  which  they  were  respectively  com- 
posed ;  but  these  are  recognised  because  they  are  inharmon- 
ious with  the  picture  as  a  whole.  They  are  stains,  and  not 
parts  of  the  original  picture. 

Accordingly,  in  spite  of  certain  differences,  so  close  does 
this  part  of  the  task  bring  us,  starting  from  our  widely 
opposed   points   of  contemplation,   that   the   conclusion  of 


the  Physician  15 

this  brilliant  passage  is  an  expression  of  Paul's  general 
position  in  the  Jewish  and  Hellenic  world,  as  Harnack  con- 
ceives it,  which  I  am  able  to  adopt  and  to  use  as  my  own  : 
"  Paul  and  Luke  are  counterparts.^  As  the  former  is  only 
intelligible  as  a  Jew,  but  a  Jew  who  has  come  into  the  closest 
contact  with  Hellenism,  so  the  latter  is  only  intelligible  as  a 
Hellene,  but  a  Hellene  who  has  personally  had  touch  with 
the  original  Jewish  Christianity."  Usually,  in  his  characteri- 
sation of  Paul,  the  Author  sees  the  Jew  so  clearly,  that  he 
sees  nothing  else  ;  and,  as  a  rule,  I|find  myself  in  strenuous 
opposition  to  his  conception  of  the  great  Apostle.  Here  hr* 
recognises  the  very  close  contact  of  Paul  with  Hellenism. 
We  must,  then,  ask  whether  that  contact  had  been  so  utterly 
devoid  of  effect  on  Paul's  sensitive  and  sympathetic  mind, 
as  the  Author  often  represents  it  to  have  been  ?  To  me  it 
seems  that,  while  Luke  was  the  Hellene,  who  could  never 
fully  understand  or  sympathise  with  the  Jew  2  (though  his 
whole  life  and  thought  had  been  changed  by  contact  with 
the  religion  taught  by  Jews),  Paul  was  the  Jew  who  had 
sympathised  with  much  that  lay  in  Hellenism  and  had  been 
powerfully  modified  and  developed  thereby,  remaining,  how- 
ever, a  Jew,  but  a  developed  Jew,  "  who  had  come  into  the 
closest  contact  with  Hellenism  ". 

In  the  familiar  argument  about  the  "  We  "-passages  of 
Acts,  the  Author  puts  one  point  in  a  striking  and  impressive 
way.  In  these  "  We  "-passages,  as  he  points  out  and 
as  is  universally  recognised,  Luke  distinguishes  carefully 
between  "We"  and  Paul.  Wherever  it  is  reasonably 
possible,  in  view  of  historic  and  literary  truth,  he  empha- 
sises Paul  and  keeps  the  "  We  "  modestly  in  the  background. 

^  Gegenbilder,  companion  and  contrasted  pictures. 
*  St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  p.  207. 


1 6  I.  Luke 

Now,  take  into  account  the  narrative  in  Acts  xxviii.  8-10: 
"And  it  was  so  that  the  father  of  PubHus  lay  sick  of  fever 
and  dysentery  :  unto  whom  Paul  entered  in  and  prayed, 
and  laying  his  hands  on  him  healed  him.  And  when  this 
was  done,  the  rest  also  which  had  diseases  in  the  island 
came  and  were  cured  [more  correctly,  '  received  medical 
treatment'] :  who  also  honoured  us  with  many  honours." 

In  this  passage  attention  is  concentrated  on  Paul,  so 
long  as  historic  truth  allowed  ;  but  Paul's  healing  power 
by  prayer  and  faith  could  not  be  always  exercised.  Such 
power  is  efficacious  only  occasionally  in  suitable  circum- 
stances and  on  suitable  persons.  As  soon  as  it  begins 
to  be  exercised  on  all  and  sundry,  it  begins  to  fail,  and 
a  career  of  pretence  deepening  into  imposture  begins. 
Accordingly,  when  the  invalids  came  in  numbers,  medical 
advice  was  employed  to  supplement  the  faith-cure,  and  the 
physician  Luke  became  prominent.  Hence  the  people 
honoured  not  "  Paul,"  but  "  us ". 

Here  the  Author  recognises  a  probable  objection,  but  con- 
siders it  has  not  any  serious  weight,  viz.,  that  Luke,  like 
Paul,  may  have  cured  by  prayer  and  not  by  medical  treat- 
ment. Against  this  he  points  to  the  precise  definition  of 
Publius's  illness,  which  is  paralleled  often  in  Greek  medical 
works,  but  never  in  Greek  literature  proper;  and  argues 
that  faith-healers  do  not  trouble  themselves,  as  a  rule,  about 
the  precise  nature  of  the  disease  which  is  submitted  to 
them.  He  acknowledges  that  this  is  not  a  complete  and 
conclusive  answer.  He  has  strangely  missed  the  real 
answer,  which  is  complete  and  conclusive.  Paul  healed 
Publius  {laaaTo),  but  Luke  is  not  said  to  have  healed  the 
invalids  who  came  afterwards.  They  received  medical 
treatment   {iOepairevovTo).      The  latter  verb   is   translated 


the  Physician  17 

"  cured "  in  the  English  Version  ;  and  Professor  Harnack 
agrees.  Now  in  the  strict  sense  idepairevovTo,  as  a  medical 
term,  means  "  received  medical  treatment "  ;  and  in  the 
present  case  the  context  and  the  whole  situation  de- 
mand this  translation  (though  Luke  uses  the  word  else- 
where sometimes  in  the  sense  of  "cure"):  the  contrast 
to  Ida-aro,  the  careful  use  of  medical  terms  in  the  passage, 
and  above  all  the  implied  contrast  of  Paul's  healing  power 
and  Luke's  modest  description  of  his  medical  attention  to 
his  numerous  patients  from  all  parts  of  the  island,  all  demand 
the  latter  sense.     Professor  Knowling  is  here  right. 

The  Author  states  a  careful  argument  that,  since  Luke 
and  Aristarchus  are  twice  mentioned  together  in  the  Epistles 
of  Paul,  and  Aristarchus  is  thrice  mentioned  in  the  Acts, 
the  silence  of  Acts  about  Luke  is  to  be  explained  by  his 
having  written  the  book ;  and  that  there  is  no  other  explana- 
tion possible,  Aristarchus,  an  unimportant  person,  is  men- 
tioned in  Acts  solely  because  he  was  in  relation  with  Luke. 
Luke  did  not  name  himself,  though  he  frequently  indicates  his 
presence  by  using  the  first  person.  Luke  and  Aristarchus 
were  Paul's  two  sole  Christian  companions  on  his  voyage  to 
Rome.  These  facts,  the  triple  reference  in  Acts  to  a  person 
so  unimportant  in  history  as  Aristarchus,  and  the  silence 
about  Luke  except  in  the  editorial  '*  we,"  point  to  Luke  as 
the  author. 

This  argument  occurs  or  appeals  to  every  one  who  ap- 
proaches the  book  with  a  desire  to  understand  it ;  it  carries 
weight ;  but  the  weight  is  lessened  by  the  enigmatic  silence 
of  Acts  about  Titus,  a  person  of  such  importance  and  so 
closely  alike  in  influence  to  Luke.  He  who  solves  that 
enigma  will  throw  a  flood  of  light  on  the  early  history  of 
Christianity  in  the  Aegean  lands.     A  conjecture  that  Titus 


i8  I.  Luke 

was  a  relative  of  Luke  (brother  or  cousin)^  is  advanced  in 
St.  Paid  the  Traveller,  p.  390 ;  and  as  yet  I  see  no  other 
way  out  of  the  difficulty,  since  the  only  other  supposition 
that  suggests  itself — viz.,  that  Titus  Lucanus  was  the  full 
name  of  the  author,  and  that  he  was  sometimes  spoken  of 
as  Titus  simply,  sometimes  as  Lukas  (an  abbreviated  form) 
— introduces  apparently  far  greater  difficulties  than  it  solves. 
The  attempt  on  pp.  15-17  to  demonstrate  that  the  writer 
of  Acts  was  closely  connected  with  Syrian  Antioch,  seems 
to  me  a  distinct  failure.  That  Luke  had  some  family  con- 
nection with  Syrian  Antioch  ^  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the 
evidence  of  his  writings,  and  must  be  accepted  on  the  evidence 
of  Eusebius  and  others ;  but  the  Author's  argument  that  this 
influenced  his  selection  and  statement  of  details  is  anything 
but  convincing.  A  false  inference  seems  to  be  drawn  in 
some  cases.  For  example,  it  is  pointed  out  on  p.  16,  note  i, 
that  Syrian  Antioch  is  only  once  alluded  to  in  the  Pauline 
letters  (Gal.  ii.  11),  whereas  it  is  often  mentioned  in  a  pecu- 
liar and  emphatic  way  in  Acts  ;  and  the  inference  is  drawn 
that  the  emphasis  laid  on  Antioch  in  Acts  cannot  be  ex- 
plained purely  from  the  facts  and  must  be  due  to  some 
special  interest  which  Luke  felt  in  it.  This  reasoning  implies 
that  the  importance  of  different  places  in  the  early  history 
of  Christianity  can  be  estimated  according  to  the  frequency 
with  which  they  are  mentioned  in  Paul's  letters.  Without 
that  premise  the  Author's  reasoning  in  the  note  just  quoted 
has  no  validity  ;  but  the  premise  needs  only  to  be  formally 
stated,  and  its  falsity  is  at  once  evident. 

1  In  the  Expository  Times,  1907,  p.  285,  Professor  A.  Souter  argues  that  in 
2  Cor.  viii.  i8  Luke  is  called  "  the  brother  "  of  Titus.  This  always  seemed  to 
me  highly  probable;  but  aB€\<p6s  might  signify  "cousin,"  and  it  might 
indicate  close  friendship  and  intimacy  {St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  p.  390). 

"  On  the  character  of  this  connection,  see  Note  at  the  end  of  this  article. 


the  Physician  19 

In  the  view  which  I  have  tried  to  support,  the  reason 
why  Syrian  Antioch  is  often  mentioned  in  Acts  is  not  that 
Luke  loved  to  speak  of  his  own  city,  but  simply  and  solely 
its  critical  and  immense  importance  in  the  development  of 
the  early  Church.  In  Antioch  were  taken  the  first  important 
steps  in  the  adaptation  of  the  Church  to  the  pagan  world  ;  for 
the  episode  of  Cornelius  does  not  imply  such  a  serious  step, 
and  would  have  been  quite  compatible  with  the  maintenance 
of  a  really  Judaic  Church. 

The  reason  why  Antioch  is  rarely  mentioned  by  Paul  is 
that  his  letters  are  not  intended  to  give  a  history  of  the  de- 
velopment of  the  Church,  but  to  warn  or  to  encourage  his 
correspondents.  Only  in  Galatians  i.,  ii.,  does  Paul  diverge 
into  history,  and  there  Antioch  plays  an  extremely  important 
part.  It  is  the  scene  of  action  from  Galatians  i.  21  (where 
Syria  means  Antioch)  down  to  ii.  i,  and  again  ii.  11-14; 
and  in  these  two  references  how  much  historical  weight  is 
implied  ! 

The  Author's  further  suggestion  that  Mnason  the  Cy- 
priote, whom  Paul  and  his  companions  found  living  at  a 
town  between  Caesareia  and  Jerusalem,^  may  have  been 
the  missionary  from  Cyprus  that  helped  to  found  the  Church 
in  Antioch  (p.  16,  n.  2),  has  absolutely  nothing  in  its  favour, 
and  is  an  example  of  the  sort  of  vague  "  might  have  been  " 
which  annoys  and  irritates  the  plain  matter-of-fact  English 
scholar,  but  which  is  extremely  popular  among  the  so-called 
"  Higher  Critics  "  abroad  and  at  home.  Those  suggestions 
of  utterly  unproved  and  improbable  possibilities  lead  to 
nothing,  and  should  never  be  made,  as  here,  buttresses  for  an 

^At  Jerusalem,  as  the  Author  thinks,  assigning  no  value  to  Western 
readings.  My  own  view  is  that  even  the  Accepted  Text  bears  the  same  sense 
as  the  Western  (Expositor,  March,  1895,  p.  213  f.). 


20  I.  Luke 

argument,  founded  on  the  Author's  observation  that  among 
the  Antiochian  leaders  mentioned  in  xiii.  i,  no  Cypriote 
occurs.^  But  we  must  remember  that  the  first  of  the  list, 
the  outstanding  leader  of  the  Antiochian  Church,  Barnabas, 
was  a  Cypriote ;  and,  though  he  was  not  one  of  the  mission- 
aries who  helped  in  the  original  foundation,  he  came  to 
Antioch  immediately  after  the  foundation ;  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  assume  that  the  five  leaders  mentioned  in  xiii.  i 
must  include  all  the  original  founders. 

The  imagined  contrast  between  the  importance  attached 
in  Acts  to  Syrian  Antioch  and  Paul's  comparative  silence 
about  it,  is  strengthened  by  the  quotation  of  Acts  xiv.  19 
as  a  reference — a  confusion  of  Syrian  with  Pisidian  Antioch, 
evidently  a  mere  slip,  but  a  slip  into  which  the  Author 
has  been  betrayed  by  eagerness  to  find  arguments  in  favour 
of  a  theory. 

Not  much  better  seems  to  me  the  inference  drawn  from 
the  first  speech  of  Jesus  (Luke  iv.  21-27),  which  begins 
with  "  this  parable,  Physician,  heal  thyself,"  and  ends  with 
a  reference  to  Naaman,  the  Syrian.  In  this  the  Author 
finds  conclusive  proof  that  Luke  was  a  physician,  and  that 
he  was  keenly  interested  in  Antioch.  What  connection 
has  Damascus  with  Antioch  ?  True,  we  now  speak  of 
them  both  as  in  Syria.  But  Syria  was  not  a  country. 
There  was  no  political  connection  between  Damascus  and 
Antioch  when  that  speech  was  delivered,  and  as  little  when 
Luke  composed  his  history.  The  two  cities  were  in  different 
countries,  under  different  rule,  far  distant  from  one  another, 
and  having  so  far  as  we  know  nothing  in  common.  One 
was  the  capital  of  a  Roman  Province,  the  other  was  subject 

'  Ein  Cyprier  wird  nicht  genannt. 


the  Physician  21 

to  the  barbarian  King  of  Arabia.     It  is  only  on  the  map 
that  they  look  close  to  one  another. 

The  cases  in  which  I  find  myself  obliged  to  disagree  with 
the  Author  are  generally  of  one  class,  and  are  due  to  the 
fact  that  he  frequently  regards  as  indicative  of  Luke's  in- 
dividual character  details  which  are  forced  on  the  historian 
by  his  subject.  We  have  found  some  examples  in  the 
Author's  attempted  proof  that  Antioch  had  a  special  interest 
for  Luke  as  his  birthplace.  On  p.  106  he  attempts  similarly 
to  show  that  Ephesus  had  a  special  interest  for  him,  and 
is  specially  marked  out  among  the  Churches  by  him ;  this 
supposed  interest  he  explains  by  the  further  supposition  that 
Luke  settled  and  wrote  either  at  Ephesus  or  in  a  district  for 
which  Ephesus  had  a  central  significance,  and  he  adds  that 
this  country  may  have  been  Achaia.  Why  Ephesus  should 
have  a  central  significance  for  one  who  resided  in  Achaia  is 
not  easy  to  see,  except  in  the  sense  that  it  had  a  central 
significance  for  the  Gentile  Church  in  general:  in  other 
words,  that  Ephesus  was  a  leading  and  specially  important 
Church.  But,  if  it  was  so,  does  not  its  importance  sufficiently 
explain  the  attention  and  space  which  the  historian  Luke 
devotes  to  it,  without  supposing  that  he  had  some  private 
and  personal  love  for  speaking  about  the  city  ?  Moreover, 
this  assumed  residence  of  Luke  in  Achaia  is  not  in  harmony 
with  the  Author's  footnote  on  the  same  page,  in  which  he 
says  that,  while  Acts  clearly  shows  the  foundation  of  the 
Church  at  Corinth  to  have  been  the  principal  achievement 
of  Paul's  second  journey,  yet  Luke  himself  had  no  relation 
to  the  Corinthian  Church.^     How  it  could  have  been  possible 

'  For  my  own  part  I  think  that  Luke  had  relations  with  the  Corinthian 
Church  {St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  pp.  284,  390).  But  this  is,  as  yet,  merely 
matter  of  opinion. 


22  I.  Luke 

for  Luke  to  settle  in  Achaia,  and  yet  not  come  into  any  re- 
lation to  Corinth,  but  regard  Ephesus  as  the  point  of  central 
significance  for  his  district,  I  cannot  in  the  circumstances  of 
the  Roman  period  understand,  nor  does  the  Author  try  to 
explain.  The  rest  of  Achaia  communicated  with  Ephesus 
only  through  Corinth ;  and  it  is  simply  incredible  that 
residents  in  Achaia  should  disregard  Corinth  and  look  to 
Ephesus. 

The  Author  seeks  to  prove  that  Luke  felt  a  special 
interest  in  Ephesus  mainly  from  the  character  of  the 
Ephesian  address  (Acts  xx.  i8  ff.)  ;  and  he  mentions  (i)  the 
heartfelt  tone  of  affection  in  which  Paul  addresses  the  elders 
of  Ephesus  ;  (2)  the  way  in  which  Paul's  address  on  that 
occasion  is  turned  into  a  general  farewell  to  the  congrega- 
tions of  the  Aegean  district ;  (3)  that  he  knows  and  takes 
notice  of  the  later  history  of  the  Ephesian  Church. 

(i)  The  facts  seem  to  me  only  to  illuminate  Paul's  feeling 
towards  Ephesus  and  to  mark  out  Luke's  report  as  being  a 
trustworthy  account  of  an  address  which  was  really  de- 
livered ;  Luke  sinks  and  Paul  alone  emerges  in  the  report. 
The  words  spoken  by  Paul  prove  nothing  as  to  Luke's 
feelings  unless  the  speech  is  either  a  fabrication  of  Luke's, 
or  an  unnecessary  part  of  a  history  of  the  time,  unim- 
portant in  itself  and  not  characteristic  enough  to  deserve 
insertion.  Now,  if  true,  the  speech  throws  much  light  on 
the  character  of  Paul :  it  is  uttered  on  a  great  and  unique 
occasion  :  it  is  the  one  episode  in  Acts  which  brings  out  into 
clear,  strong  relief  the  intense  interest  which  Paul  felt  in  his 
Churches.  In  short,  it  is  eminently  required  in  order  to 
complete  the  picture  of  Paul's  work  in  the  Aegean  world, 
and  it  was  spoken  at  the  moment  when  Paul  was  taking 
farewell  of  that  world  in  order  to  enter  on  the  new  world  of 


the  Physician  23 

the  West  (after  consecrating  the  results  of  his  work  in  the 
Aegean  world  by  an  offering  at  Jerusalem  intended  to 
cement  the  unity  of  all  the  Churches  of  the  East).  The 
speech  is  introduced  with  eminent  dramatic  propriety.  It 
is  historic  in  its  scope  and  weighty  in  its  matter.  He  who 
argues  that  the  words  reveal  Luke's  feelings,  not  Paul's,  is 
therefore  driven  back  on  the  other  alternative,  that  the 
speech  was  a  fabrication  of  Luke's  ;  but  we  remember  that, 
on  the  Author's  view,  Luke  was  present  and  heard  the  speech. 
How  can  we  reconcile  the  contradiction  ?  Luke,  a  com- 
panion and  admirer  of  Paul,  listened  to  the  address 
delivered  on  such  a  remarkable  occasion ;  but,  in  place  of 
reporting  the  speech  which  he  heard,  he  presents  his  readers 
with  a  fabricated  one. 

This  contradiction  can  be  reconciled  only  by  declaring 
Luke  to  have  been  a  singularly  bad  historian ;  and  such  is 
the  Author's  view :  Luke  was  incapable  of  being  accurate, 
and  was  untrustworthy  as  a  historian.  But  is  this  view 
natural  ?  Is  it  reconcilable  with  the  literary  skill  and  the 
sympathetic  insight  of  the  work  }  Could  the  man  who  tells 
the  story  of  the  voyage  and  shipwreck  make  such  a  false 
account  of  another  great  occasion  ? 

(2)  The  farewell  to  Ephesus  was  at  some  points  expressed 
by  Paul  as  a  general  farewell,  because  his  audience  included 
representatives  of  all  the  Churches,  in  Achaia,  Macedonia, 
Asia  and  Galatia;  and  though  these  representatives  were 
accompanying  him  to  Jerusalem,  yet,  when  he  was  explain- 
ing that  he  intended  to  come  no  more  into  those  regions 
(having,  as  we  know,  Rome  and  the  West  now  in  view), 
he  naturally  began  to  speak  more  generally  :  "  Ye  all,  among 
whom  I  went  about  preaching,  shall  see  my  face  no  more  ". 
This  is  said  to  all  the  congregations,  Corinth,  etc.,  which, 


24  I-  Luke 

though  absent,  were  represented  by  delegates,  who  would 
report  his  farewell. 

(3)  Considering  Paul's  past  experience  elsewhere,  it  is 
not  strange  that  he  should  be  able  to  foresee  what  dangers 
from  without  and  from  within  awaited  Ephesus.  Further, 
the  Author  has  just  pointed  out  that  the  address  had 
already  become  general;  why,  then,  does  he  assume  that 
this  sentence  29-30  applies  only  to  Ephesus,  and  shows 
such  a  knowledge  of  later  Ephesian  history  as  proves  the 
subsequent  acquaintance  with,  perhaps  actual  residence  in, 
Ephesus  of  the  historian  who  composed  the  address  and  put 
it  into  the  mouth  of  Paul  ?  It  might  equally  plausibly  be 
argued,  on  the  contrary,  that  this  sentence  shows  ignorance 
of  subsequent  Ephesian  history,  for  both  John  and  Ignatius 
agree  that  Ephesus  was  long  the  champion  of  truth  and 
the  rejecter  of  error. ^ 

In  general,  one  feels  that,  where  the  Author  is  at  his  best, 
he  is  studying  Luke  in  a  straightforward  way  and  drawing 
inferences  from  observed  facts ;  where  he  is  less  satisfactory 
he  has  got  a  theory  in  his  head,  and  is  straining  the  facts 
to  support  the  theory. 

He  lays  much  stress  on  the  fact  that  inconsistencies  and 
inexactnesses  occur  all  through  Acts.  Some  of  these  are 
undeniable ;  and  I  have  argued  that  they  are  to  be  regarded 
in  the  same  light  as  similar  phenomena  in  the  poem  of  Lucre- 
tius and  in  other  ancient  classical  writers,  viz.,  as  proofs 
that  the  work  never  received  the  final  form  which  Luke 
•intended  to  give  it,  but  was  still  incomplete  when  he  died. 
The  evident  need  for  a  third  book  to  complete  the  work, 
together  with  those  blemishes  in  expression,  form  the  proof: 
see  below,  p.  27. 

*  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  x>.  240  f. 


the  Physician  25 

But  the  Author  finds  inconsistencies  and  faults  in  Luke 
where  I  see  none.  He  complains,  e.g.^  that  Luke  is  not  dis- 
turbed by  the  fact  that  Paul  was  driven  on  by  the  Spirit 
to  Jerusalem,  and  yet  the  disciples  in  Tyre  through  this 
same  Spirit  seek  to  detain  him  from  going  to  Jerusalem. 
I  cannot  feel  disturbed  any  more  than  Luke ;  such  were  the 
facts  ;  and  I  can  only  marvel  that  the  great  German  scholar 
thinks  we  ought  to  be  disturbed.  Nor  can  I  blame  Luke 
(as  the  Author  does,  p.  81)  because  Agabus's  prophecy, 
xxi.  II,  is  not  fulfilled  exactly  as  it  is  uttered.  Luke  is 
merely  the  reporter  of  what  he  heard  Agabus  say  ;  and  we 
can  only  feel  profoundly  grateful  that  he  recorded  the 
simple  facts,  and  did  not  suppress  the  prophecy  or  adapt  it 
to  the  event. 

The  tendency  to  regard  historical  details  which  Luke 
narrates  as  indicative  of  his  personal  character  often  takes 
the  form  of  blaming  the  historian  for  being  inconsistent, 
where  the  inconsistency  {^\i  it  be  such)  was  the  fault  of 
the  facts,  not  of  the  narrator.  I  quote  just  one  example. 
In  xvi.  37  Paul  appeals  to  his  Roman  rights  as  a  citizen : 
"one  asks  in  astonishment  why  he  does  so  only  now". 
One  may  certainly  be  quite  justified  in  asking  the  question, 
but  one  is  not  justified  in  blaming  Luke  because  Paul  did 
not  claim  his  rights  sooner.  This  is  an  interesting  question. 
Paul  had  already  several  times  submitted  to  punishment 
from  Roman  or  municipal  magistrates  without  claiming  his 
immunity  from  such  treatment  as  a  Roman.  At  this  point 
he  began  to  take  advantage  of  his  privileged  position.  Is 
not  this  a  step  in  his  realisation  of  the  relation  of  the  Church 
to  the  Empire  ? 

We  take  it  that  Luke  is  right,  and  that  Paul  did  not  at 
first  reveal  his  Roman  citizenship  to  the  Philippian  magis- 


26  I-  Luke 

trates.  If  that  is  so,  it  is  absurd  to  blame  the  historian  for 
telling  the  truth.  The  Author,  presumably,  must  hold  that 
Luke  is  wrong,  that  Paul  did  claim  his  rights  earlier,  and 
that  Luke  either  suppressed  or  was  ignorant  of  the  Apostle's 
earlier  appeal.  Now  the  Author's  view  is  that  Luke  was  in 
Philippi  as  Paul's  companion  ;  the  facts  therefore  must  have 
been  known  to  the  historian,  but  he  did  not  record  the 
first  claim.  Such  conduct  would  justify  the  very  severe 
strictures  which  the  Author  makes  on  Luke's  inability  to  tell 
a  story  clearly  and  correctly.  But  how  difficult  it  is  to  work 
out  that  theory  in  a  reasonable  way!  If  Paul  claimed  his 
rights  on  the  preceding  day,  how  did  it  come  that  he  was 
beaten  in  defiance  of  the  privilege  of  a  Roman  citizen? 
And,  if  the  magistrates  were  convinced  by  his  claim  on  the 
morrow,  how  came  they  to  disregard  it  on  the  first  day? 
Or  are  we  to  suppose  that  the  beating  was  an  invention  of 
Luke's  ? 

In  short,  here  and  generally,  we  come  back  to  Professor 
McGiffert's  view  (as  stated  above)  that,  if  Luke  was  a  friend 
and  companion  of  Paul,  his  history  must  be  accepted  as 
thoroughly  trustworthy.  The  qualities  of  intellect  and 
heart  which  are  revealed  in  his  work  show  that  he  was  an 
exceptionally  well-qualified  witness  and  narrator.  The 
Author's  theory  that  Luke  was  Paul's  contemporary  and 
personal  friend,  and  often  an  eye-witness  of  the  events  which 
he  records,  but  yet  was  untrustworthy  as  a  recorder  even  of 
what  he  had  seen,  leads  into  many  hopeless  inconsistencies, 
of  which  the  above  is  only  one  slight  specimen. 

There  are  clear  signs  of  the  unfinished  state  in  which  this 
chapter  was  left  by  Luke  ;  but  some  of  the  German  scholar's 
criticisms  show  that  he  has  not  a  right  idea  of  the  simplicity 
of  life  and  equipment  that  evidently  characterised  the  jailer's 


the  Physician  27 

house  and  the  prison,  ^  The  details  which  he  blames  as 
inexact  and  inconsistent  are  sometimes  most  instructive  about 
the  circumstances  of  this  provincial  town  and  Roman 
colonia. 

But  it  is  never  safe  to  lay  much  stress  on  small  points  of 
inexactness  or  inconsistency  in  any  author.  One  finds  such 
faults  even  in  the  works  of  modern  scholarship,  if  one  ex- 
amines them  in  the  microscopic  fashion  in  which  Luke  is 
studied  here.  I  think  I  can  find  them  in  the  Author  him- 
self His  point  of  view  sometimes  varies  in  a  puzzling  way. 
On  p.  92  the  paragraph  Acts  xxviii.  17-31  is  said  to  be 
clearly  modelled  to  make  it  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  work. 
On  p.  96  the  Author  confesses  his  inability  to  solve  the 
serious  problem  presented  by  the  last  two  verses,  and  suggests 
the  possibility  that  Luke  intended  to  write  a  third  book. 
Again,  on  p.  20  he  numerates  xx.  5,  6  as  part  of  the  "  We"- 
sections,  but  on  p.  105  f  he  declares  that  Luke  first  met 
Paul  at  Troas,  accompanied  him  to  Philippi,  and  there 
parted  from  him,  to  rejoin  him  after  some  years,  and  in  fact 
the  meeting  took  place  once  more  at  Troas.  But  if  the  re- 
union only  took  place  at  Troas,  then  xx.  5,  6  cannot  be  a 
genuine  part  of  the  "We  "-sections. 

I  suspect  that  inexactness  on  the  Author's  part  forms  the 
foundation  for  a  charge  which  he  brings  against  me.  He 
speaks  of  my  theory  that  Luke  was  employed  by  Paul  as  a 
physician  during  his  severe  illness  in  Galatia.  If  I  have  so 
spoken  it  would  be  a  clear  example  of  inexactitude  and 
inconsistency  on  my  own  part.  I  entirely  agree  with  Pro- 
fessor Harnack  that  Paul  first  met  Luke  in  Troas,  and  that 
Luke  never  travelled  with  Paul  in  Galatia  ;  and  I  think  this 
is  put  quite  clearly  and  strongly  in  my  book,  St.  Paul  the 

1  St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  p.  220  ff. 


28  I.  Luke 

Traveller.  I  may  elsewhere  have  been  guilty  of  this  in- 
exactitude and  inconsistency ;  but  I  cannot  remember  to 
have  made  such  a  statement.  I  have  doubtless  spoken  of 
Luke  as  being  useful  as  a  medical  adviser  to  Paul  in  travel- 
ling, as,  e.g.,  I  have  said  that  Luke  would  have  discouraged 
any  proposal  to  walk  sixty  miles  in  two  days  (Acts  xxi.  \6)} 
more  especially  since  Paul  was  liable  to  attacks  of  fever ;  but 
his  fever  was  not  confined  to  Galatia  or  to  any  one  journey. 
Moreover,  a  traveller  may  be  guided  by  his  physician's  advice, 
even  though  the  physician  does  not  accompany  him. 

The  Author  has  an  object  in  thus  dwelling  on  the  incon- 
sistencies and  inexactitudes  of  which  Luke  is  guilty.  He  is 
here  preparing  to  cope  with  the  supreme  difficulty  in  Acts, 
viz.,  the  disagreement  between  the  narrative  of  Acts  xv.  and 
that  of  Galatians  ii.  i-ii,  if  these  are  taken  (as  the  Author 
takes  them)  to  be  accounts  of  the  same  event,  or  series  of 
events.  These  are  so  plainly  inconsistent  with  one  another 
— for  the  attempts  to  represent  them  as  consistent  are  among 
the  strange  things  in  the  history  of  learning — that,  if  they 
depict  the  same  incident,  one  must  be  fatally  inaccurate. 
Now,  as  Paul  was  present  and  took  part  in  the  incident,  his 
evidence  must  rank  higher,  unless  he  be  condemned  as  in- 
tentionally misrepresenting  facts,  a  theory  which  few  adopt 
and  which  need  not  be  considered.  Luke  then  must  be 
wrong,  where  he  is  in  disagreement  with  Paul.  The  dis- 
agreement can  be  readily  explained  by  those  who  regard 
Acts  as  the  work  of  a  later  period  :  history,  as  they  may 
reasonably  say,  had  become  dimmed  by  lapse  of  time,  by  the 
growth  of  prejudice,  and  by  various  other  causes.  But  how 
can  those  explain  it,  who  maintain  (as  the  Author  does)  that 
Acts   was   written   by   the  friend,  coadjutor  and   personal 

'  In  a  paper  now  reprinted  in  Pauline  and  other  Studies  (1906),  p.  267. 


the  Physician  29 

attendant  of  Paul,  the  friend  of  many  other  persons  closely 
concerned  and  certain  to  possess  good  information  ?  The 
inconsistency  is  not  in  unimportant  details,  easily  caught 
up  differently  by  different  persons  :  the  inconsistency  is 
fundamental  and  thorough. 

To  that  question  the  Author  has  to  prepare  his  answer ; 
and  his  answer  is  that  Luke  was  habitually  inaccurate  and 
inconsistent  with  himself  This  answer  is  always  a  difficulty, 
against  which  the  Author  is  struggling  with  extraordinary 
dialectic  skill  throughout  his  book,  but  the  struggle  is  vain 
and  success  impossible.  Luke  is  not,  in  the  Author's  exposi- 
tion, a  single  character.  He  is  a  double  personality,  good 
and  bad. 

The  truth  is,  as  has  frequently  been  pointed  out,  that  the 
whole  problem  which  governs  so  completely  and  so  disas- 
trously this  and  most  modem  books  about  Acts  is  a  mere 
phantom,  the  creation  of  geographical  ignorance,  the  result 
of  the  irrational  North  Galatian  view.  Acts  xv.  describes  a 
different  scene  from  Galatians  ii.  2-1 1. 

On  p.  106  f  the  Author  discusses  the  relation  between 
Luke  and  the  Gospel  of  John,  and  points  out  that  of  all 
the  Apostles  Luke  shows  interest  in  none  but  Peter  and 
John.  The  idea  that  this  greater  frequency  of  reference  to 
these  two  Apostles  might  be  due  to  their  greater  importance 
in  the  development  of  Christianity  as  the  religion  of  the 
Empire  (which  I  hold  to  be  the  truth)  is  set  aside  without 
even  a  passing  glance  by  the  Author.  The  reason  must  lie 
in  some  accidental  meeting  of  Luke  with,  or  personal  relation 
to,  John.  It  is  quietly  assumed  from  first  to  last  that  the 
determining  motive  of  Luke  in  his  choice  of  events  for 
record  or  omission  lies  in  personal  idiosyncrasy  or  caprice, 
never  in  the  importance  or  insignificance  of  the  events.     The 


30  I.  Luke 

Author  says  that,  considering  his  predilection  for  John,  it  is 
remarkable  that  Luke  does  not  mention  him  in  Acts  xv., 
when  Paul  shows  in  Galatians  ii.  that  John  was  one  of  the 
three  prominent  figures  in  the  incident ;  and  the  only  in- 
ference which  he  draws  is  that  Luke  had  not  read  the  letter 
to  the  Galatians.  But,  even  if  that  inference  were  true,  it 
would  not  be  a  sufficient  explanation,  for  Luke  had  abundant 
opportunity  of  learning  the  facts  and  the  comparative  au- 
thority of  the  various  Apostles  from  other  informants;  and 
the  Author  fully  grants  that  he  made  considerable  use  of  oral 
information.  The  only  justifiable  inference  which  the  mere 
commonplace  historian  would  permit  himself  to  draw  is  that, 
according  to  the  information  at  Luke's  disposal,  John  did 
not  play  a  prominent  part  in  the  incident  described  in  Acts 
XV.,  whereas  he  was  prominent  in  the  scene  described  by  Paul 
(Gal.  ii.  2-10). 

The  view  which  at  present  commends  itself  to  me  (but 
which  might,  of  course,  be  altered  by  more  systematic  con- 
sideration) is  that  the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  knew  the 
Third,  but  that  the  writer  of  the  Third  did  not  know  the 
Fourth  and  had  little  direct  personal  acquaintance  with  its 
author.  The  analogies  which  Dr.  Harnack  points  out  are 
analogies  of  subject,  forced  on  both  by  external  facts,  and 
not  caused  by  the  character  of  the  two  writers. 

It  sounds,  at  first  hearing,  strange  to  us  that  the  Author 
feels  himself  as  the  first  to  observe  that  the  female  element  is 
so  much  emphasised  in  Luke,  whereas  Mark  and  Matthew 
give  women  very  small  place  in  the  history.^  This  seems 
such  a  commonplace  in  English  study,  that  I  felt  obliged  to 

'  Worauf^  soviel  ich  mich  erinnere,  bisher  noch  nie  aufmerksdm  gemacht 
warden  ist.  .  .  .  Erst  Lukas  hat  sie  [i.e.,  Frauen]  so  stark  in  die  evangelische 
■Geschichte  eins;efuhrt. 


the  Physician  31 

be  almost  apologetic  and  very  brief  in  referring  to  the  subject 
in  Was  Christ  Born  at  Betldehem  ?  (pp.  83-90).  Yet  when 
one's  attention  is  called  to  the  fact,  it  is  not  easy  to  refer  to 
any  formal  and  serious  discussion  of  this  extremely  important 
side  of  the  evidence  about  Luke's  personality ;  and  it  may  be 
that  the  Author  is  the  first,  at  least  in  modern  German 
scholarship,  to  treat  the  topic  in  a  scholarly  way.  The  truth 
seems  to  be  that  German  scholars  have  been  so  entirely 
taken  up  with  the  preliminary  questions,  such  as  "  Was  there 
a  Luke  at  all  ? "  that  they  have  never  tried  to  discover  what 
sort  of  man  he  was.  Even  those  who  championed  his  reality 
were  so  occupied  in  proving  it  by  what  are  considered  more 
weighty  arguments,  that  they  forgot  the  mode  of  proof  which 
seems  in  my  humble  judgment  to  be  far  the  strongest,  viz., 
to  hold  up  to  the  admiration  of  all  thinking  men  this  man 
Luke  in  his  humanity  and  reality.  Do  his  works  reveal  to 
us  a  real  man  ?  If  so,  they  must  be  the  genuine  composition 
of  a  true  person ;  no  pseudonymous  work  ever  succeeded  or 
could  succeed  in  exhibiting  the  supposititious  writer  as  a 
real  personality.  Professor  Harnack  has  only  half  essayed 
the  task.  He  has  entered  on  it,  but  never  heartily,  for  he  is 
too  much  cumbered  by  prepossessions,  by  old  theories  only 
half  discarded,  and  above  all  by  the  hopeless  fetters  of  the 
North-Galatian  prejudice,  which  inevitably  distorts  the  whole 
history. 

I  have  pointed  out,  in  the  passage  just  quoted  (p.  90), 
that  this  attitude  of  Luke's  mind  is  characteristic  of  Mace- 
donia (implying  thereby  that  it  is  not  characteristic  of  Greece 
proper) :  I  might  and  should  have  added  that  it  is  character- 
istic also  of  Asia  Minor.  But  there  is  much  to  say  on  this 
subject,  and  here  I  can  only  refer  to  the  discussion  of  the 
effect  on  subsequent  Christian  development  produced  by  the 


32  I.  Luke 

Anatolian  craving  for  some  recognition  of  the  female  element 
in  the  Divine  nature  {^Pauline  and  other  Studies ^  1906,  p. 

135  ff). 

"  The  traditions  of  Jesus,  which  lie  before  us  in  the  works 
of  Mark  and  Luke,  are  older  than  is  commonly  supposed. 
That  does  not  make  them  more  trustworthy,  but  yet  is  not 
a  matter  of  indifference  for  their  criticism."  ^  So  says  the 
Author  on  p.  113.  These  are  not  the  words  of  a  dispassionate 
historian ;  they  are  the  words  of  one  whose  mind  is  made  up 
a  priori^  and  who  strains  the  facts  to  suit  his  preconceived 
opinion.  In  no  department  of  historical  criticism  except 
Biblical  would  any  scholar  dream  of  saying,  or  dare  to  say, 
that  accounts  are  not  more  trustworthy  if  they  can  be 
traced  back  to  authors  who  were  children  at  the  time  the 
events  which  form  this  subject  occurred,  and  who  were  in 
year-long,  confidential  and  intimate  relations  with  actors  in 
those  events,  than  they  would  be  if  they  were  composed  by 
writers  one  or  two  generations  younger,  who  had  personal 
acquaintance  with  few  or  none  of  the  actors  and  contem- 
poraries.2     But  compare  above,  p.  4. 

There  is  room,  and  great  need,  for  a  dispassionate  and 
serious  examination  of  the  question  how  far  there  exist  in  the 
Gospels  traces  of  the  age  in  which  they  were  composed,  and 
of  the  thought  characteristic  of  that  time.  Such  an  ex- 
amination cannot  now  be  conducted  to  a  useful  end  by  one 
who  begins  with  his  mind  made  up  as  to  what  must  be  later 
and  what  cannot  be  real,  for  this  prejudice  must  Inevitably 
be  of  nineteenth  century  character  and  hostile  to  any  true 

1  Die  Ueberlieferungen  von  yesus,  die  bet  Markus  und  Lukas  vorliegen, 
sind  alter  ah  man  gewohnlich  annimmt.  Das  macht  sie  nicht  glauhwUrdiger, 
ist  aber  dock  fur  ihre  Kritik  nicht  gleichgidtig. 

*The  Author  dates  Luke's  History  a.d.  8o.  For  a  different  reason  I  argued 
that  Luke  iii.  ii  was  written  under  Titus,  79-81  {St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  p.  387). 


the  Physician  33 

comprehension  of  first  century  realities.  I  cannot  but  think 
and  maintain  that  there  are  later  elements  in  the  Gospels, 
showing  the  influence  of  popular  legend,  and  reminding  us 
that  after  all  the  picture  of  Jesus  which  stands  before  us  in 
the  New  Testament  has  always  to  be  contemplated  through 
glass  that  is  not  perfect  and  flawless,  through  a  human  and 
imperfect  medium.^  The  flaws  can  be  distinguished,  but  the 
marvel  is  that  they  are  so  few  and  so  unimportant.  The 
picture  is  so  strong,  so  simple  in  outline,  and  so  unique,  that  it 
shines  with  hardly  diminished  clearness  through  the  medium. 

After  stating  in  a  general  way  the  position  which  Professor 
Harnack  takes  up  in  this  remarkable  book,  it  is  only  fair  to 
give  some  specimens  in  detail  of  the  arguments  on  which  he 
relies.  As  we  are  in  almost  entire  agreement  with  the  main 
position  of  his  book,  it  will  conduce  to  clearness  to  say  that 
most  of  the  quotations  which  will  be  made  at  the  outset  are 
of  points  which  seem  to  show  his  method  at  its  best.  In  the 
concluding  pages  some  remarks  will  be  made  on  the  method 
of  proof  which  is  employed  in  the  book. 

The  Author's  argument  and  inferences  about  the  passages 
in  which  the  first  personal  pronoun  "  We  "  is  used  are  stated 
most  definitely  on  p.  37  f.  After  minutely  examining  Acts 
xvi,  10-17,  and  observing  the  identity  in  words,  construction, 
tone  and  thought,  with  the  style  of  the  rest  of  the  Acts  and 
the  Third  Gospel,  he  argues  that,  if  the  writer  of  the  Acts 
took  this  passage  from  a  "  Source,"  he  has  left  nothing  in  it 
unchanged  except  the  first  personal  pronoun :  everything 
else  he  has  recast  into   his  own  characteristic  vocabulary, 

^  Legend  gathers  quickly  in  the  East.  It  is,  for  example,  an  interesting 
study  to  observe  how  the  historic  figure  of  Ibrahim  Pasha  has  been  hidden 
beneath  a  crust  of  legend  in  the  districts  of  Asia  Minor  which  he  held  from 
1832-40.     The  name  is  famous,  but  the  legends  gather  round  it. 


34  I-  Luke 

syntax  and  style.  Such  a  procedure  is  simply  inconceivable, 
and  therefore  there  remains  only  the  position  that  the  writer 
of  the  whole  book  is  himself  the  original  composer  of  these 
"  We  "-passages  :  he  is  the  man  whose  personal  presence  in 
Troas'and  Philippi  with  Paul  obliges  him  to  speak  as  a  wit- 
ness of  and  sharer  in  the  action. 

It  is  possible,  the  Author  argues  on  o.  38,  to  go  one  step 
farther.  The  writer  did  not  take  this  passage,  xvi.  10-17, 
from  his  own  old  notebook  or  diary,  and  insert  it  in  his 
history.  When  he  wrote  the  history  twenty  to  thirty  years 
after  the  events,  he  could  not  possibly  have  retained  in  all 
respects  exactly  the  same  style  as  he  used  in  his  old  note- 
book. This  passage  was  written  when  the  Book  of  the  Acts 
was  written ;  it  was  composed  as  part  of  the  whole  work, 
though  this  does  not  preclude  the  view  that  he  had  notes 
written  down  at  the  time,  with  which  he  could  refresh  his 
memory.  This  argument  is  absolutely  conclusive  to  every 
person  that  has  the  power  of  comprehending  and  appreciat- 
ing style  and  literary  art ;  unfortunately  many  of  the  so- 
called  "  Higher  Critics  "  seem  to  have  become  devoid  of  any 
such  comprehension  through  fixing  persistently  their  atten- 
tion on  words  and  details. 

Luke  was  not  merely  a  witness,  he  took  part  in  the  action : 
"  Straightway  we  sought  to  go  forth  into  Macedonia,  con- 
cluding that  God  had  called  us  for  to  preach  the  Gospel 
unto  them,"  and  "  we  sat  down  and  spake  unto  the  women  " 
(xvi.  10,  13):  here  the  narrator  makes  himself  one  of  the 
missionaries  to  Macedonia.  He  was  not  a  mere  companion, 
he  was  an  enthusiastic  missionary  to  that  country ;  and  on 
my  view  (though  not  on  the  Author's  view)  he  continued  to 
be  specially  devoted  to  that  country,  except  in  so  far  as  the 
still  closer  personal  devotion  to  Paul  called  him  away. 


the  Physician  35 

The  Author,  on  the  contrary,  is  disposed  to  connect  Luke 
with  Ephesus,  with  Asia  and  with  Achaia  (as  has  been  stated 
above,  p.  21).  He  finds  a  sufficient  proof  that  Luke  was 
not  a  Macedonian  ^  in  Acts  xxvii.  2 — "  we  put  to  sea,  Aris- 
tarchus, a  Macedonian  of  Thessalonica,  being  with  us"  (p.  31). 
I  cannot  see  any  force  in  this  reasoning.  On  the  same 
principle  it  might  be  argued  that  Luke  was  not  an  Asian 
(which  the  Author  is  incUned  to  believe  that  he  was),  because 
in  XX.  4,  5,  he  speaks  of  "  Asians,  Tychicus  and  Trophimus," 
who  "  were  waiting  for  us  at  Troas  ". 

The  remarkable  passage,  Acts  xvi.  9,  must  detain  our 
attention  for  a  moment,  while  we  apply  to  it  a  principle 
which  the  Author  lays  down  on  p.  11,  though  he  does  not 
apply  it  to  xvi.  9,  and  would  deny  the  inferences  which  we 
shall  draw.  He  points  out  that,  throughout  the  "We"- 
passages,  Luke  distinguishes  carefully  between  "We"  and 
Paul :  wherever  it  is  reasonably  possible  in  view  of  historic 
and  literary  truth,  he  emphasises  Paul  and  keeps  the  "We" 
modestly  in  the  background.^  Now  observe  in  xvi.  10  how 
the  "  We "  is  put  forward.  The  vision  was  seen  by  Paul 
alone,  the  message  was  given  to  Paul  alone,  "  Come  over 
into  Macedonia  and  help  us".  Yet  the  narrative  continues, 
"  And  when  he  had  seen  the  vision,  straightway  we  sought 
to  go  forth  into  Macedonia,  concluding  that  God  had  called 
us  for  to  preach  the  Gospel  unto  them  ".  Without  any  ap- 
parent necessity,  even  without  any  apparent  justification, 
the  writer  assumes  that,  because  Paul  has  been  called  into 
Macedonia,  Luke  shares  in  the  call.  There  is  no  other 
passage  in  which  the  "We"  is  forced  in    without  obvious 

^In  this  paragraph  I  am  using  the  words  Macedonian  and  Asian  of  Luke 
in  the  sense  of  residing  in  Macedonia  or  in  Asia,  which  is  not  strictly  accurate, 
but  is  convenient. 

*See  above,  p.  15  f. 


36  I.  Luke 

justification ;  and  on  the  view  stated  in  St.  Paul  the  Traveller, 
pp.  200-3,  there  is  a  justification  hidden  beneath  the  surface 
in  this  case  also,  for  Luke  had  played  a  part  in  the  vision, 
and  was  therefore  forced  to  conclude  that  he  as  well  as  Paul 
was  called  to  Macedonia.  Several  reasons  (which  need  not 
be  repeated  here)  are  there  stated,  which  point  to  the  idea 
that  the  man  of  Macedonia,  whom  Paul  saw  in  the  vision 
and  recognised  at  sight  as  a  Macedonian,  was  Luke ;  and 
these  are  confirmed  by  the  observation  now  stated. 

Every  time  I  read  this  remarkable  passage,  xvi.  6-10, 
I  am  more  and  more  struck  with  the  intense  personal  feeling 
that  lies  under  the  words,  the  hurry  and  rush  of  the  narrative, 
and  the  quiet  satisfaction  of  the  conclusion,  "  God  had  called 
us  ".  Luke  is  here  introducing  himself,  in  the  moment  when 
he  played  so  important  a  part  in  determining  the  course  of 
Paul's  work.  The  large  space  which  is  given  to  the  Mace- 
donian work  in  the  Acts  is  out  of  proportion  to  its  importance, 
and  can  only  be  explained  by  Luke's  strong  personal  interest 
in  it. 

The  Author  gives  as  an  example  of  the  style  of  the  "  We  "- 
passages  a  similar  analysis  of  xxviii.  1-16,  a  specimen  of 
continuous  sea-narrative;  his  treatment  cannot  be  shortened, 
but  must  be  studied  in  full.  Only  one  criticism  has  to  be 
made  on  this  excellent  piece  of  investigation.  It  is  strange 
that  on  p.  44  the  Author  quotes,  as  if  there  were  any  prob- 
ability in  it.  Professor  Blass's  unjustifiable  objection  to,  and 
conjectural  alteration  of,  the  reading  irapaarnxw  AtocrKovpoa, 
"whose  sign  was  the  Twin  Brothers,"  given  by  MSS.  and 
all  other  editions  in  Acts  xxviii.  11.  Neither  of  them  has 
observed  that  this  dative  absolute  is  the  correct  technical 
form,  guaranteed  by  many  examples  in  inscriptions.  This 
has  been  pointed  out,   and   some  examples   quoted   in   an 


the  Physician  37 

article  published  long  ago  in  the  Expositor}  There  is  no 
detail  in  which  the  exact  technical  accuracy  of  Luke's  ex- 
pression is  more  clearly  made  out  than  this,  and  yet  Professor 
Blass  would  change  it  into  a  commonplace  relative  clause, 
«5  y]v  ■jrapdaTjfiov  Acoa-Kovpcjv,  which  is  Greek  so  unidiomatic 
as  to  be  hardly  Greek  at  all. 

The  author  devotes  considerable  space  to  statistics  about 
the  occurrence  of  the  same  words  in  the  "  We  "-passages 
and  in  Luke  generally,  as  contrasted  with  the  rarity  or 
total  absence  of  many  of  those  words  in  Matthew,  Mark 
and  John.  It  is  impossible  to  abbreviate  this  argument: 
the  reasoning  must  be  taken  as  a  whole,  and  seems  con- 
clusive, though  opinion  will  always  differ  a  good  deal  as  to 
the  value  of  such  verbal  arguments  in  proving  identity  of 
authorship.  Personally,  I  have  not  as  a  rule  much  belief 
in  such  arguments,  but  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  statis- 
tics in  this  case  are  impressive. 

The  single  sign  of  difference  between  the  language  of 
the  "  We  "-passages  and  the  rest  of  Luke  lies  in  the 
unusually  large  number  of  words  in  the  former,  which 
are  used  nowhere  else  by  Luke.  Words  which  an  author 
uses  only  once  and  no  more  occur  throughout  the  writings 
of  Luke  as  well  as  in  all  the  other  books  of  the  New 
Testament ;  they  are  distributed  in  a  fairly  even  way,  and 
in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  the  "  We  "-passages  there 
should  be  in  them  about  thirty-eight  words  which  occur 
nowhere  else  in  the  Acts  and  the  Third  Gospel ;  whereas 

'  Room  for  it  fails  in  the  present  volume.  In  St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  p.  346, 
it  did  not  occur  to  me  even  to  defend  this  common  technical  usage  (dates  by  a 
consul's  name,  e.g.,  being  always  tacked  on  loosely  by  this  absolute  dative  in 
Greek,  ablative  in  Latin) :  I  had  not  realised  how  little  known  the  technical 
and  the  colloquial  Greek  of  the  later  Hellenistic  and  the  Roman  period  was 
known  even  to  such  masters  of  Greek  as  the  late  Professor  Blass. 


38  I.  Luke 

there  actually  occur  1 1 1  of  that  class.  But  this  is  due  to 
the  subject-matter.  Navigation  and  voyages  play  a  large 
part  in  the  "  We  "-passages,  because  it  was  to  a  large  extent 
on  voyages  that  Luke  accompanied  Paul  in  the  earlier  years 
of  their  friendship ;  and  he  was  by  nature  interested  as  a 
Greek  in  seamanship.  Three-fifths  of  the  words  which  are 
peculiar  to  the  "  We  "-passages  are  technical  terms  relating 
to  ships,  parts  of  a  ship,  naval  ofificers,  sea-winds,  manage- 
ment of  a  ship,  and  matters  of  navigation  generally,  and 
almost  all  of  them  are  nouns,  while  the  few  verbs  without 
exception  denote  actions  required  in  seamanship.  Such  words 
are  forced  on  the  writer  by  his  subject ;  and,  as  the  Author 
rightly  remarks,  it  is  a  striking  fact  that  in  spite  of  the 
novelty  of  subject  in  chapter  xxvii.,  describing  the  ship- 
wreck, the  ordinary  style  and  vocabulary  of  Luke  are 
traceable  with  perfect  clearness  even  in  that  long  passage 
(p.  60). 

It  is,  of  course,  acknowledged  by  practically  all  scholars 
that  Luke  employed  written  Sources.  These  written 
Sources  he  has  modified  and  recast  so  that  they  assume 
much  of  his  own  style.  Now,  if  any  one  still  continues,  in 
spite  of  the  above-stated  proofs  from  style  and  vocabulary, 
to  urge  that  Luke  found  the  "  We  "-passages  in  a  written 
Source,  and  took  them  over  into  his  book,  transforming 
them  into  his  own  style  and  language,  the  Author  replies 
by  a  careful  study  of  the  way  in  which  Luke  elsewhere  uses 
his  written  Sources,  from  which  he  demonstrates  that  in 
spite  of  the  freedom  with  which  Luke  handled  and  touched 
up  his  written  Source,  the  original  style,  syntax  and  vocabu- 
lary still  are  clearly  traceable  in  the  transformed  narrative. 
This  is  one  of  the  most  important  and  striking  parts  in  the 
Author's  work,  and  will  reward  the  closest  attention. 


the  Physician  39 

While  every  one  admits  freely  as  a  starting-point  that 
Luke  had  access  to  written  narratives  about  many  events 
of  which  he  had  not  been  an  eye-witness — for  he  himself 
mentions  in  the  opening  of  his  Gospel  that  there  were  many 
such  written  Sources,  founded  on  information  given  by  eye- 
witnesses, to  which  he  could  have  recourse — there  is  not 
much  agreement  as  to  the  extent  to  which,  and  the  parts  of 
his  two  books  in  which,  he  was  indebted  to  these  Sources. 
But  there  is  at  any  rate  one  Source,  the  character  of  which 
is  indubitable :  for  we  possess  the  Source  in  practically 
its  original  form  (or  a  form  so  near  the  original  as  to  be 
equally  useful  for  the  immediate  purpose  of  this  investiga- 
tion), and  can  thus  tell  exactly  how  far  and  in  what  way 
Luke  used  it.  Some  Sources  are  more  or  less  a  matter  of 
conjecture  and  inference,  as  they  are  lost  in  the  original 
form  and  are  merely  supposed  as  the  foundation  of  Luke's 
narrative.  But  it  is  practically  universally  admitted  now 
that  Luke  employed  the  Second  Gospel :  he  took  a  copy  of 
Mark  in  much  the  same  text  and  extent  as  we  now  possess, 
and  he  wrote  out  three-fourths  of  it  in  his  own  Gospel  in 
much  the  same  order  as  Mark  wrote  it.  He  improved  the 
Greek,  he  touched  it  up  with  explanatory  additions  and 
"improvements"  or  "corrections,"  and  he  added  greatly 
to  it  from  other  sources  of  information,  oral  or  written  ; 
but  the  style,  syntax  and  vocabulary  of  Mark  are  clearly 
discernible  in  the  borrowed  passages. 

The  Author  exemplifies  this  in  two  passages,  Mark  i. 
21-28  {i.e.,  Luke  iv.  30-37)  and  Mark  ii.  i-ii  {i.e.,  Luke 
v.  17-24).  A  few  verses  may  be  quoted  from  the  first  as  a 
specimen  of  this  most  luminous  and  instructive  investigation, 
which  ought  to  be  studied  by  every  one  in  the  Author's  own 
worHs 


40  I.  Luke 

Mark  i.   21.      And   they    go   into  Luke  iv.  31.     And  He  came  dowa 

Capernaum,  and  straightway  on  the  to  Capernaum,  a  city  of  Galilee,  and 

Sabbath    day    He   entered   into    the  He  was  teaching  them  on  the  Sabbath 

synagogue  and  taught.  day. 

Mark  has  used  the  plural  "  they  went  after  him  "  in  the 
previous  verse,  and  continues  his  narrative  accordingly.  But 
Luke  had  the  singular  in  iv.  30  (which  belongs  to  a  passage 
derived  from  a  non-Markan  source),  "  He  passing  through  the 
midst  of  them  went  His  way  "  ;  and  was  therefore  obliged  to 
change  Mark's  plural  to  the  singular.  Further,  in  the  pre- 
ceding verses  Mark's  scene  was  the  shore  of  the  Sea  of 
Galilee,  and  therefore  the  simple  verb  "go"  was  suitable. 
But  Luke's  scene  in  the  preceding  passage  was  at  Nazareth, 
and  he  marks  the  change  of  scene  from  the  hill-country  of 
Nazareth  to  the  lower  coast  of  the  lake,  "  He  came  down  ". 
And,  as  the  readers  for  whom  he  wrote  did  not  know  the 
topography  of  Palestine,  he  adds  to  the  name  Capernaum 
the  explanation  "  a  city  of  Galilee  ",^  Again,  Mark  was  fond 
of  the  word  "straightway,"  and  often  employed  it  (as  in 
verse  23) ;  but  Luke  disliked  the  usage,  and  often  omits 
the  word.  Mark  allowed  the  verb  "  teach  "  without  an  ob- 
ject ;  but  this  also  was  not  a  usage  that  Luke  approved,  and 
he  inserted  "  them  "  (not  very  lucidly).  The  process  "  was 
teaching "  seemed  to  Luke  to  express  the  facts  better  than 
the  simple  "  taught ".  He  found  the  expression  "  was  teach- 
ing "  in  the  following  sentence  of  Mark,  and  brought  it  over 
to  this  place. 

22.     And  they  were  astonished  at  32.     And  they  were  astonished  at 

His  teaching  ;  for   He  was  teaching  His  teaching,  for  His  word  was  witk 

them  as  having  authority  and  not  as  authority, 
the  scribes.^ 

'  Luke  has  already  mentioned  Capernaum  in  iv.  23 ;  but  there  it  occurs 
incidentally  in  a  speech  of  Jesus,  and  explanation  is  unnecessary  and  would 
be  out  of  place.     Here  the  topographical  explanation  is  useful  and  suitable. 

■•'The  quotations  here  follow  the  Authorised  Version  almost  exactly,  biit 


the  Physician  4 1 

In  the  second  half  of  the  verse  the  thought  is  entirely- 
remodelled  and  transformed  into  Lukan  Greek  and  Lukan 
language ,  the  verb  had  been  transferred  to  the  preceding 
sentence,  and  change  was  therefore  imperatively  required.^ 

23.     And    straightway    there  was  33.     And  in   the  synagogue  there 

in  their  synagogue  a  man  in  an  un-  was  a  man  which  had  a  spirit  of  an 

clean  spirit ;   and  he  cried  out,  say-  unclean  demon,  and  he  cried  out  with 

ing —  a  loud  voice-^ 

Luke  here  cuts  out  the  possessive  "their,"  and  replaces 
the  preposition  "in"  (perhaps  a  literal  rendering  by  Mark 
from  the  original  Semitic,  not  very  satisfactory  in  Greek)  by 
"  which  had  "  ;  he  defines  "  unclean  "  more  precisely  ;  he 
substitutes  the  more  vivid  "  with  a  loud  voice  "  for  the  simple 
"saying";  and  omits  "straightway"  (compare  verse  21). 

Verses  24  and  25  are  taken  over  unchanged,  except  that 
in  25  Luke  changes  "  out  of"  into  "from  ". 

A  comparison  like  this  might  be  carried  out  over  the 
whole  of  the  matter  common  to  Mark  and  Luke.  In  some 
places  there  is  distinctly  more  change  than  here.  But  even 
where  there  is  most  change,  enough  remains  to  show  the 
character  of  the  Source.  Slight  alterations  to  improve  the 
Greek  are  frequent.  Complete  refashioning  of  the  thought 
and  expression  is  rare.  Words  and  phraseology  which  Luke 
rarely  employs  where  he  is  writing  freely  are  retained  from 
the  Source.  Luke  recognised  that  a  certain  type  of  narra- 
tive style  had  been  established  for  the  Gospel,  and  he 
allowed  this  to  remain.  Especially  in  the  beginning  of  a 
borrowed  paragraph  he  altered  more  freely  to  suit  the  pre- 

occasional  slight  changes  are  made  to  follow  the  Greek  more  literally,  as  here 
"was  teaching,"  where  both  Authorised  and  Revised  Versions  give  "  taught" 
(which  is  better  English  in  this  case). 

'  Similarly,  when  the  Bezan  Reviser  transferred  the  idea,  "  he  neglected  a 
region,"  from  Acts  xvi.  8  to  xvii.  14,  he  remodelled  the  former  passage. 


42  I.  Luke 

ceding  narrative.  From  some  places  it  is  clear  that  he  did 
not  translate  verse  by  verse,  but  considered  a  paragraph  or 
incident  as  a  whole,  and  transferred  touches  from  one  point 
to  another,  where  they  seemed  more  effective.  He  studied 
effect  more,  or  rather,  perhaps,  he  pictured  the  scene  to  him- 
self more  vividly  than  Mark  did,  and  lit  it  up  with  more 
vivid  forms  of  language,  e.g. — 

Mark  ii.  3.  And  they  came  carry-  Luke  v.  18,  And  behold!  men 
ing  unto  Him.  carrying. 

It  will  be  best  to  give  one  continuous  example  from  the 
Author,  showing  the  net  result  over  a  short  paragraph,  of 
Luke's  way  of  treating  the  Markan  original ;  the  capitals 
indicate  non-Markan  matter,  and  the  italics  matter  which 
is  gathered  from  Mark  but  occupies  a  different  place  in  his 
narrative.  The  reader  observes  how  Luke  in  his  opening 
words  places  the  picture  before  the  reader's  eye. 

Mark  ii.  i-io.  Luke  v.  17-24. 

1.  And  when  Reentered  again  into  17.  And  it  came  to  pass  on  one  of 
Capernaum  after  some  days,  it  was  those  days  that  He  was  teaching ;  and 
noised  that  He  was  in  the  house.  there  were  Pharisees  and  doctors 

OF  THE  LAW  sitting  by,  which  were 
come  out  of  every  village  of 
Galilee  and  Judaea  and  Jeru- 
salem :  and  the  power  of  the  Lord 
was  with  Him  to  heal. 

2.  And    many    were   gathered   to-         Nil. 
gether,  etc. 

3.  And  they  come,  bringing,  etc.  18.  And  behold,  men  bring,  etc. 

4.  And  when  they  could  not  come         19.  And  not  finding  by  what  way 
nigh  .  .  .  they  uncovered  the  roof,  and     they  might  bring  him  in,  they  ...  let 
when  they  had  broken  it  up,  they  let     him  down  through  the  tiles. 
down  the  bed. 

5.  And  Jesus  seeing  their  faith,  etc.         20.  And  seemg  their  faith,  He,  etc. 

6.  But  there  were  certain  of  the  21.  And  the  scribes  and  the  Phari- 
scribes  sitting  there,  and  reasoning  in  sees  began  to  reason,  saying,  Who 
their  hearts. 


the  Physician  43 

7.  Why  does  this  man  thus  speak  ?  is  this  that  speaketh  blasphemies  ? 
He  blasphemeth ;  who  can  forgive  Who  can  forgive  sins,  but  God 
sins  but  one,  God  ?  alone  ? 

8.  And  straightway  Jesus,  per-  22.  But  Jesus  perceiving  their 
ceiving  in  His   spirit    that   they   so    reasonings,  etc. 

reasoned  within  themselves,  etc. 

9.  Whether  is  easier,  etc.  23.  Whether  is  easier,  etc. 

10.  But  that  ye  may  know  that  the         24.  But  that  ye  may  know,  etc. 
Son  of  man  hath  power  on  earth,  etc. 

Mark  ii.  i — Luke  v.  17.  Luke  prefixes  an  introductory- 
sentence  in  which  he  describes  the  general  situation  and  lays 
stress  on  the  fact  that  it  was  for  Jesus  a  day  of  power  (per- 
haps implying  an  idea,  natural  to  a  physician,  that  His  power 
was  not  always  equally  strong  in  Him).  This  sentence  is 
non-Markan,  yet  most  of  it  actually  lies  in  Mark's  account  of 
the  incident,  and  merely  needs  to  be  gathered  out  of  what 
he  relates.  The  last  statement  regarding  the  power  of 
Jesus  might  perhaps  be  inferred  by  a  physician  from  Mark  ii. 
10  f. ;  but  it  goes  beyond  what  Mark  says. 

Moreover,  in  the  first  sentence  Luke  describes  the  com- 
pany, Pharisees  and  doctors  of  the  law,  and  their  origin  from 
numerous  distant  villages  of  almost  all  Palestine,  Mark  only 
incidentally  mentions  in  verse  6  that  there  were  scribes 
present.  Luke  gives  the  picture  of  a  large  assemblage  of 
learned  and  distinguished  persons.  Mark  in  verse  2  (not 
reproduced  by  Luke)  tells  us  of  the  crowd,  but  leads  us  to 
understand  that  the  crowd  was  of  the  ordinary  kind,  and  we 
should  naturally  infer  (though  Mark  does  not  exactly  say  so) 
that  it  mainly  consisted  of  the  people  of  the  district  and  was 
rather  uneducated  as  a  whole,  though  there  was  a  sprinkling 
of  scribes  among  them  (verse  6). 

The  two  pictures  are  markedly  different.  If  Mark  was 
the  sole  authority  upon  whom  Luke  here  could  draw,  this 
passage  would  certainly  suggest  that  Luke  made  additions 


44  I-  Luke 

from  his  own  imagination  without  actual  testimony,  and  that 
he  went  at  lea^t  to  the  verge,  if  not  beyond  the  verge,  of  what 
is  allowable  in  thus  reconstructing  a  picture  from  the  words 
of  an  earlier  authority. 

The  question,  then,  arises:  Had  Luke  no  other  authority? 
The  Author  seems  tacitly  to  assume  that  he  was  dependent 
solely  on  Mark ;  and,  if  so,  one  can  only  say  that  Luke  goes 
beyond  his  authority  and  his  picture  is  less  trustworthy. 
Hence — on  the  Author's  assumption — the  general  impres- 
sion that  results  would  be  unfavourable  to  Luke's  historical 
trustworthiness  in  comparison  with  Mark. 

But  is  the  assumption  correct  ?  I  cannot  think  so.  Luke 
claims  to  have  had  several  authorities  (i.  2).  The  certainty 
and  the  detail  in  which  he  describes  the  character  of  the 
crowd  and  its  origin  from  all  Palestine  seem  to  me  to  imply 
the  use  of  other  testimony  besides  Mark. 

One  Markan  detail  is  omitted.  Luke  nowhere  states  the 
exact  locality  ;  but  leaves  us  to  gather  from  v.  i,  12,  16,  that  it 
was  near  the  lake  of  Gennesaret. 

In  the  sequence  of  the  narrative  the  frequent  use  of  the 
simple  "  and  "  to  connect  the  sentences  is  not  Luke's  own 
style,  but  is  taken  by  him  from  his  authority.  Various 
changes  are  made  in  the  words  of  Mark  to  improve  the  style. 
Some  of  these  changes  are  in  the  direction  of  a  "  Biblical 
style,"  which  Luke  seems  to  have  regarded  as  suitable,  and 
which  he  did  not  employ  except  where  he  thought  the 
occasion  and  subject  to  be  suitable ;  e.g.,  he  does  not  use  it 
in  i.  1-4,  but  begins  at  once  to  employ  it  in  i.  5  ff. ;  examples 
here  are  the  introduction  of  "they  began  to  reason  "  instead 
of"  they  were  reasoning  "  (ii.  6 — v.  21).  and  the  form  "  it  came 
to  pass"  (17).  Other  changes  are  made  to  avoid  words  or 
usages   which  he   disliked:  he   avoided   the   phrase    "and 


the  Physician  45 

straightway,"  he  changed  the  adjective  "  a  man  sick  of  the 
palsy"  {irapaXvTiKoi)  into  the  participle  "a  man  that  was 
palsied"  (•jrapaXeXvfievo'i),  and  so  on.  He  substituted  the 
better  Greek  word  kXcvIBlov  for  the  vulgar  Kpd^aTrov.  He 
altered  Mark's  words,  "  perceiving  that  they  so  reasoned 
within  themselves  "  into  "  perceiving  their  reasonings  ". 

The  Author  rightly  remarks  that  the  change  from  "  thy 
sins  are  forgiven  "  to  "  thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee  "  (twice,  ii. 
5, 9 ;  V.  20,  23)  is  difficult  to  explain.  There  may  be  more  in 
this  slight  addition  than  meets  the  eye. 

It  is  also  noteworthy  that  in  Mark  the  scribes  "  were 
reasoning  in  their  hearts,"  and  that  Jesus  perceived  "  in  His 
spirit  that  they  so  reasoned  within  themselves,"  whereas 
in  Luke  they  simply  reasoned  and  Jesus  perceived  their 
reasonings.  Yet  Luke's  report  of  Jesus'  words,  "  What  reason 
ye  in  your  hearts?"  shows  that  the  words  were  not  spoken, 
but  only  thought.  Here  the  picture  given  by  Mark  with 
such  repeated  emphasis  is  exactly  the  picture  that  we 
gather  from  Luke,  when  we  read  his  narrative  to  the  end  ; 
and  it  becomes  clear  that  his  omission  of  "  in  the  hearts  "  was 
due  to  stylistic  reasons  alone,  as  was  his  omission  of  "  in  His 
spirit"  in  v.  22  (which  he  evidently  considered  otiose). 

The  changes  from  ii.  4  which  are  introduced  in  Luke  v. 
19  are  of  a  more  serious  kind,  and  give  a  radically  different 
picture  of  the  event.  It  might  fairly  be  said  that  they  have 
almost  the  effect  of  misrepresenting  the  facts.  The  same 
effect  is  produced  in  a  few  other  cases ;  but  this  is  either  for 
the  sake  of  making  the  situation  more  intelligible  to  his 
readers,  who  were  Western,  not  Oriental,  or  possibly  because 
he  doubted  the  accuracy  of  some  detail  in  the  Source.  The 
present  case  may  be  taken  as  a  good  example.  It  is  briefly 
noted  by  the  Author,  who,  however,  does  not  discuss  it,  but 


46  I.  Luke 

refers  in  a  word  to  Wellhausen's  explanation.  The  words 
are  fully  discussed  in  my  Essay  on  the  Credibility  of  Luke 
i^Was  Christ  Born  at  Bethlehem?  pp.  58-64);  but  I  may 
epitomise  here  what  is  stated  at  length  there.  Mark  ii.  4 
describes  how  the  bearers  of  the  paralytic  stripped  off  the 
covering  of  clay  and  soil  from  the  (flat)  roof  of  the  house, 
broke  a  hole  in  the  ceiling,  and  let  down  the  bed  through  it. 
This  description  was  true  of  the  simple  Palestinian  hut,  but 
was  unintelligible  to  a  person  who  knew  only  the  houses  of  a 
Greek  or  a  Roman  city.  Luke  adapts  his  account  of  the 
incident  (not  to  a  Greek  house,  but)  to  a  Roman  house,  and 
tells  how  the  bearers  of  the  man  who  was  paralysed  went 
up  on  the  tiled  roof,^  and  let  the  sick  man  down  through 
the  hole  {impluviuni)  which  was  in  the  roof  of  the  public 
room  {atrium)  of  every  Roman  house.  There  was  not  a  hole 
of  this  kind  in  the  roof  of  Greek  houses,  and  Luke  therefore 
wrote  for  an  audience  or  a  single  reader  {viz.,  Theophilus,  a 
Roman  official  ^)  familiar  with  Roman  houses,  i.e.,  living  either 
in  Italy  or  in  some  Roman  colony  like  Philippi.  Perhaps 
we  may  assume  that  the  Roman  style  of  house  was  common 
in  this  Roman  colony.  We  could  hardly  make  such  an 
assumption  about  the  Colony  Corinth,  where  probably  Greek 
fashion  was  dominant;  but  at  Philippi  the  Roman  soldiers 
were  numerous. 

There  is  no  question  here  that  Mark  states  the  actual 
facts,  and  Luke  misrepresents  what  occurred.  The  ques- 
tion is  whether  Luke,  familiar  only  with  Greek  or  Roman 
houses,  misunderstood  the  description  of  the  incident  on  the 
roof  of  a  rustic  hut  in  Palestine,  or  intentionally  stated  the 

^  He  imitates  even  the  Latin  usage,  which  used  the  term  "the  tiles" 
(tegulce)  to  indicate  the  roof. 

'^St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  p.  388. 


the  Physician  47 

facts  in  this  changed  way  in  order  to  make  the  scene  more 
easily  intelligible  to  his  readers  (or  his  reader,  Theophilus), 
preserving  indeed  the  general  character  of  the  scene,  but 
altering  the  details  and  the  surroundings  from  Palestinian 
to  Italian.  But,  after  all,  how  small  even  in  this  case  is  the 
change  ! — for  though  a  good  many  sentences  are  needed  to 
explain  it  to  the  modern  reader,  it  is  completed  in  two  or 
three  words  in  the  Greek. 

What  is  most  striking  as  the  result  of  the  Author's  in- 
vestigation is  (i)  the  slightness  of  the  changes  as  a  whole 
that  Luke  makes  in  his  authority,  and  the  faithfulness  with 
which  on  the  whole  he  reports  his  authority,  even  preserving 
largely  Mark's  very  simple  method  of  connecting  sentences 
by  "and"  (/cat) — a  kind  of  connection  which  is  much  rarer 
in  the  parts  where  Luke  composes  freely. 

(2)  His  almost  invariable  practice  of  touching  up  descrip- 
tions of  medical  matters :  on  this  there  will  be  more  to  say 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  present  paper. 

(3)  The  way  in  which,  even  where  he  most  freely  alters, 
he  preserves  a  certain  style  of/  expression,  which  he  evi- 
dently considered  to  be  an  established  and  suitable  form  for 
the  Gospel.  We  recognise  in  Luke  a  marked  sense  of  style 
and  great  dramatic  propriety  in  varying  the  style  to  suit 
difference  of  scene  and  action.  This  has  been  the  quality 
of  Luke  as  a  stylist  that  most  impressed  me  during  years 
of  study.  There  is  a  certain  modulation  and  freedom  in 
his  expression,  which  varies  in  obedience  to  the  feeling 
of  the  moment  and  to  the  changes  of  scene ;  and  the 
Author  is  sensitive  to  this  beyond  any  other  of  the  German 
scholars  whom  I  have  read.  Even  Professor  Blass,  greatest 
of  Lukan  editors,  has  been  so  taken  up  with  explanation, 
and  attention  to    readings,   and   questions   of  verbal   har- 


48  I.  Luke 

mony,  that  he  has  not  been  sufficiently  (if  I  may  venture  to 
say  so)  alive  to  this  highest  quality  of  style.  In  the  Author's 
hands  this  observation  leads  to  very  important  results 
regarding  the  first  two  chapters  of  Luke's  Gospel.  But, 
before  passing  to  this  much  controverted  topic,  I  should 
like  briefly  to  call  attention  once  more  to  the  paragraph 
Acts  xvi.  6-1 1  as  a  specimen  of  this  quality  in  Luke.  It 
has  long  appeared  to  me  that  this  is  the  most  remarkable 
paragraph,  from  a  certain  point  of  view,  in  the  whole  of 
Luke's  writings:  it  is  most  full  of  himself  and  his  whole 
view  of  history  and  life  and  his  Pauline  comprehension, 
most  instinct  with  vibrating  emotion  (5^.  Paul  the  Traveller^ 
p.  200)  :  "  the  sweep  and  rush  of  the  narrative  is  unique 
in  Acts:  point  after  point,  province  after  province,  are 
hurried  over  "  :  Paul  is  driven  on  from  country  to  country^ 
Galatic  Phrygia,  Asian  Phrygia,  the  Bithynian  frontier, 
Mysia,  the  Tread,  and  he  must  have  been  in  despair  as  to 
what  was  to  be  the  outcome  of  this  dark  and  perplexing 
journey,  until  at  last  the  vision  and  the  invitation  ex- 
plained the  overruling  purpose  of  all  those  wanderings. 
We  cannot  wonder  that  the  commentators  have  been  so 
perplexed  and  nonplussed  by  this  paragraph,  and  that  they 
have  had  recourse  to  such  shifts  to  make  their  way  through 
it ;  perplexity  is  the  fact  or  emotion  which  underlies 
the  whole  passage,  and  that  is  what  the  style  brings  out 
The  writer  felt  that  breathless,  panting  eagerness,  so  to  say ; 
and  his  style  is  modelled  to  suit  the  emotion.  The  style 
here  and  always  is  almost  out  of  the  writer's  control :  the 
subject  and  the  emotion  compel  the  style,  or,  rather, 
clothe  themselves  naturally  in  the  suitable  words.  That 
is  the  perfection  of  style.  But  it  puzzles  the  commen- 
tator.    We  must  here  and  everywhere  in  Acts  follow  truth 


the  Physician  49 

and  life;  we  must  regard  the  surroundings  and  the  geo- 
graphy. 

And,  if  Paul  is  here  driven  on  from  country  to  country, 
if  the  historian  has  to  hurry  over  the  lands  to  keep  pace 
with  his  subject,  is  not  that  the  whole  life  of  Paul  the 
Christian?  Paul  thinks  imperially:  "he  talks  of  Pro- 
vinces, and,  as  he  marches  on  in  his  victorious  course,  he 
plants  his  footsteps  in  their  capitals  ".1  It  is  hardly  too 
much  to  say  that  all  the  rest  of  right  Lukan  study  is  an 
exposition  of  the  meaning  and  spirit  of  that  one  paragraph 
where  the  mind  of  Luke  and  the  influence  of  Paul  are  most 
perfectly  expressed. 

Regarding  Luke  i.  and  ii.,  the  Author  is  of  the  opinion 
that  the  historian  is  dependent  entirely  on  oral  tradition, 
and  used  no  written  Source;  he  regards  those  chapters  as 
purely  legendary.  He  allows  the  possibility  that  the  narra- 
tive part  may  depend  on  an  Aramaic  written  Source 
translated  by  Luke  himself;  but  he  is  not  favourably  dis- 
posed to  this  view,  and  he  is  absolutely  convinced  that  the 
hymns  of  Mary,  i.  46-55,  and  Zacharias,  i.  68-79,  ^^e  the 
free  composition  of  Luke  himself,  that  they  were  originated 
in  the  Greek  form,  and  never  had  an  Aramaic  form.  The 
proof  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  language  and  style  are  so 
thoroughly  Lukan,  adapted  with  extraordinary  skill  from 
fragments  of  the  Old  Testament  (the  Septuagint). 

Considerable  part  of  this  view  seems  to  me  highly  prob- 
able. I  have  always  felt  and  maintained  that  Luke  regarded 
this  part  of  his  history  as  being  a  pure  addition  made  by 
him  to  the  Gospel  as  recorded  by  his  predecessors :  he  had 
obtained  it  from  oral,  not  literary  sources.'^     He   believed, 

^  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  p.  198. 
'Christ  Born  at  Bethlehem,  Chap.  IV. 
4 


50  I.  Luke 

however,  that  those  sources  were  good,  and  he  would  not 
have  been  satisfied  with  popular  tradition.  The  man  who 
wrote  i.  1-4  could  never  have  gone  on  to  repeat  in  i.  5  ff.  a 
mere  popular  tale,  or  have  invented  without  authority  such 
hymns  as  those  of  Mary  and  Zacharias.  Exaggeration  and 
overdoing  of  a  view  fundamentally  correct  is  here  the  char- 
acter of  the  Author's  opinions. 

The  Author  does  not  draw  the  following  inferences,  but 
they  seem  to  follow  from  what  he  does  say.  The  style  of 
Luke's  history  is  governed  according  to  the  gradual  evolu- 
tion of  the  Christian  Church  out  of  its  Jewish  cradle.  It 
is  most  strongly  Biblical  (z>.,  taken  from  the  Septuagint 
Greek)  and  Hebraistic  in  describing  the  birth  and  early 
years  of  Jesus.  In  describing  the  life  and  death  and  words 
of  Christ  it  is  less  Biblical,  but  still  is  deeply  tinged  with 
Hebraism,  while  in  many  parts  it  shows  strong  traces  of 
non-Lukan  style  due  to  the  use  of  written  Sources.  In 
describing  the  earliest  stage  of  the  Palestinian  Church  after 
the  death  of  the  Lord,  it  continued  to  be  distinctly  Hebrais- 
tic, and  parts  of  the  Acts  even  go  beyond  the  later  parts 
of  the  Gospel  in  the  intensity  of  the  Hebraistic  tinge,  as  if 
marking  the  narrowed  spirit  of  the  early  Church,  which  had 
hardly  yet  begun  to  understand  the  universality  of  Christ's 
message.  In  the  second  half  of  Acts  (except  in  chap.  xv. 
and  in  some  of  the  scenes  at  Jerusalem,  where  the  earlier 
Hebraistic  tone  is  perceptible)  it  is  most  thoroughly  Greek 
and  Lukan.  The  preface  to  the  whole  history,  Luke  i.  1-4, 
is  on  the  same  level  as  the  second  half  of  Acts,  in  excellent 
and  markedly  individual  Greek — here  we  have  the  true  and 
natural  Luke.  As  the  Author  says,  the  problem  of  the 
language  and  style  of  the  Third  Gospel  taken  by  itself 
would  be  insoluble,  but  by  the  aid  of  comparison  with  the 


the  Physician  51 

Acts,  everything  is  clear.  It  may  be  doubted,  however, 
whether  the  Sources  in  the  Third  Gospel  could  be  disen- 
tangled, were  it  not  that  we  can  reco\  er  the  originals  inde- 
pendently of  Luke,  through  their  survival  in  the  Gospels  of 
Mark  and  Matthew. 

I  do  not  mean  that  Luke  was  unconscious  of  the  variation 
in  style :  such  an  assertion  would  be  ridiculous.  But  he 
did  not  originate  the  variation — his  subject  originated  it; 
and  he  did  not  employ  it  for  mere  literary  and  artistic 
effect,  as  the  Author  definitely  maintains,  but  for  historical 
reasons,  as  a  means  of  conveying  more  clearly  and  effec- 
tively his  meaning. 

Study  of  the  two  forms,  Hierosolyma  and  Jerusalem, 
which  appear  side  by  side  in  Luke's  Gospel  and  Acts,  shows 
jpoth  that  Luke  was  conscious  of  the  difference  between  them, 
and  that  he  learned  from  Paul  how  to  employ  it  for  effec- 
tive presentation  of  his  subject.  There  is  no  trace  of  atten- 
tion to  this  difference  in  the  other  Gospels  ;  1  but  it  is  clearly 
present  in  the  writings  of  Paul,  who  probably  originated  it. 
The  form  Jerusalem  occurs  twice  in  Galatians,  Hierosolyma 
three  times :  the  latter  is  in  that  Epistle  clearly  a  geo- 
graphical term,  the  former  is  hieratic  and  Judaistic,  as  it  is 
in  Revelation  and  Hebrews.  A  similar  distinction  can  on 
the  whole  be  traced  in  Luke  though  it  is  partly  obscured  by 
various  causes  (notably  by  uncertainty,  and  sometimes 
perhaps  by  corruption,  in  the  text). 

L  Hierosolyma  occurs  only  four  times  in  the  Third  Gos- 
pel,2  always  very  definitely  in  a  geographical  sense,  while 

1  They  all  use  only  the  form  Hierosolyma,  except  that  Matthew  once  has 
Jerusalem.  The  latter  form  is  almost  confined  to  Paul  and  Luke  in  the  New 
Testament ;  exceptions  are  noted  above. 

^  Always  in  passages  that  have  no  parallel  in  the  Gospels  of  Mark  or 
Matthew. 


52  I.  Luke 

Jerusalem  occurs  twenty-six  times :  some  of  the  latter  cases 
are  mainly  geographical  in  sense,  but  the  atmosphere  of  the 
passage,  the  spirit  of  the  context,  may  be  regarded  as  deter- 
mining the  form  to  be  employed.  Some  of  these  cases  are 
in  passages  common  either  to  Mark  or  to  Matthew;  and 
Luke  has  deliberately  altered  the  form  used.  But  most  are 
in  passages  or  in  clauses  peculiar  to  Luke,  The  following 
list,  taken  from  the  Concordance  by  Moulton  and  Geden,  tells 
its  own  tale. 

IL  Passages  peculiar  to  Luke  :  name  Jerusalem  occurs  in 
Luke  ii.  five  times;  Luke  x.  30;  in  xiii.  three  times;  xvii. 
II ;  xix.  II  ;  xxiii.  28  ;  xxiv.,  five  times. 

III.  Passages  common  to  Luke  with  Matthew  or  Mark, 
or  both : — 

2m.     Mt.  The  holy  city. 

Mt,  Mk.  omit. 

„      „  Hierosolyma. 

„      „  omit. 


Luke 

iv,  9.     Jen 

V.  17. 

vi.   17. 

ix.  31. 

IX.   51. 

ix.   53. 

xviu.  31. 

xxi.  20,  24, 

„      „  Hierosolyma. 

„      „  omit. 

Thus,  while  Luke  has  frequently  the  form  Jerusalem,  he 
uses  it  only  twice  in  places  where  Matthew  or  Mark  actually 
employ  the  other  form.  It  is  a  principle  of  verbal  suitability 
which  is  peculiar  to  himself  among  the  Evangelists,  one 
which  he  almost  certainly  learned  from  Paul.^ 

IV.  In  Acts  i.-xii.,  xv.,  Jerusalem  occurs  twenty-five  times, 
Hierosolyma  six  times. 

'The  idea  that  Paul  adopted  it  from  Luke  may  be  dismissed  without 
hesitation.  Their  usage  cannot  be  independent  of  one  another,  if  they  were 
friends  and  companions.  Paul  is  not  likely  to  have  taken  it  from  a  prede- 
cessor. 


the  Physician  53 

V.  In  Acts  xiii.,  xiv.,  xvi.  flf.,  Jerusalem  occurs  fourteen 
times,  Hierosolyma  nineteen  times  (but  according  to  the 
text  of  WH.,  the  numbers  are  twelve  and  twenty-one). 
Many  of  the  places  where  the  form  Jerusalem  is  used  are 
markedly  hieratic  and  Hebraising. 

While  details  in  some  cases  are  uncertain,  the  general 
result  of  these  statistics  is  clear.  Luke  did,  beyond  doubt 
or  question,  attach  some  meaning  to  the  distinction  of  form. 
He  deliberately  and  intentionally  chose  sometimes  one, 
sometimes  the  other.  He  was  not  guided  by  his  Source,  for 
in  some  few  cases  he  changes  the  name  used  in  his  Source, 
and  in  other  cases  inserts  the  name  where  the  Source  did 
not  use  it.  The  distinction  is  clearest  where  he  depends  on 
eye-witness,  and  had  no  written  Source.  The  distinction  has 
no  literary  value,  but  only  a  historical  and  real  value.  It  was 
used  as  a  device  to  express  meaning,  not  to  give  external  and 
formal  beauty.  Professor  Harnack,  who  maintains  that  Luke 
aimed  at  the  latter  kind  of  effect  alone,  without  any  thought 
of  the  former,  cannot  explain  such  a  fact  as  this.  Finally, 
Luke  took  the  distinction  from  Paul,  in  whose  case  it  would 
be  ridiculous  to  think  of  a  conscious  striving  after  formal 
and  artistic  or  rhetorical  effect. 

A  similar  case  is  found  in  the  distinction  between  the  names 
Saul  and  Paul.  Luke  consciously  and  deliberately  uses  the 
former  to  indicate  the  Apostle  in  his  character  as  a  Hebrew, 
the  latter  in  his  character  as  a  citizen  of  the  Graeco-Roman 
world.  I  have  little  to  add  to,  and  nothing  to  retract  from, 
the  exposition  of  this  subject  in  St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  pp. 
81-8.  Here  again  we  have  a  distinction  used  by  Luke,  in 
regard  to  which  no  one  can  dream  of  any  striving  on  his  part 
for  artistic  or  literary  effect :  it  originates  entirely  in  the 
delicate  perception  of  real   fact  and  historic  truth.     It  is, 


54  I-  Luke 

probably,  not  necessary  nowadays  to  waste  time  on  the 
old-fashioned  idea  that  Luke  depended  on  two  written 
authorities,  in  one  of  which  the  Apostle  was  called  Saul, 
while  in  the  other  he  bore  the  name  Paul. 

In  respect  of  Luke's  style,  I  regret  to  find  myself  in  one 
important  respect  holding  a  view  diametrically  opposed  to 
that  of  the  Author.  The  style  appears  to  me  natural,  un- 
forced, determined  by  the  subject  in  hand.  The  Author, 
on  the  contrary,  takes  the  view  that  Luke's  style  is  ex- 
tremely artificial  and  elaborated  (pp.  80  f.,  152),  that  he 
paid  the  most  minute  and  careful  attention  to  form  and  the 
external  qualities  of  style,  but  was  careless  to  the  last  degree 
of  fact  and  truth  and  consistency.  It  has  been  pointed 
out  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  article  what  is  the  fixed  idea 
and  motive  that  induces  the  Author  unconsciously  to  exag- 
gerate (as  I  venture  to  think)  the  inconsistencies  and  the 
artificiality,  the  contempt  for  facts  and  the  devotion  to  verbal 
art,  that  he  discovers  in  Luke.  He  seems  to  me  to  have 
often  been  misled  by  that  fixed  idea  so  as  to  misunderstand 
Luke's  method  of  narration.  For  example,  he  thinks  that 
Luke  in  Acts  xvi,  27  describes  the  jailer  as  not  having 
observed  the  earthquake,  but  only  its  consequence,  the 
opened  doors.  It  is  quite  evident  that  Professor  Harnack 
has  never  had  the  misfortune  (or,  shall  I  say,  the  good  for- 
tune ?  for  it  is  a  good  preparation  for  appreciating  this  pas- 
sage) to  live  in  a  country  subject  to  earthquakes.  If  he  had, 
he  would  never  think  it  necessary  for  the  historian  to  record 
that  a  person,  who  was  wakened  from  sleep  by  an  earthquake 
(as  the  jailer  was  wakened),  was  cognisant  of  the  fact  that 
an  earthquake  had  occurred,  for  no  person  is  roused  by  an 
earthquake  without  perceiving  it.  Luke  and  his  readers 
knew  better  about  earthquakes ;  and  when  he  described  the 


the  Physician  55 

earthquake  and  its  consequences,  and  added  that  the  jailer 
was  wakened,  he  could  reckon  on  every  one  of  his  readers 
understanding  without  formal  mention  that  the  jailer  per- 
ceived the  earthquake.  He  who  reads  Luke  without  apply- 
ing practical  sense  and  mother-wit  and  experience  will  always 
misunderstand  him ;  and  one  of  the  chief  purposes  of  my 
St.  Paul  the  Traveller  was  to  illustrate  the  fact  that  these 
qualities  must  be  constantly  applied  in  studying  Luke. 
When  you  think  you  find  an  "inconsistency"  in  Luke,  you 
should  look  carefully  whether  you  have  been  sufficiently 
applying  these  qualities,  before  you  condemn  the  supposed 
fault. 

The  Author  is  not  disposed  to  admit  that  any  written 
Source  was  used  by  Luke  in  the  first  half  of  Acts.  He 
rejects  with  contempt  all  the  numerous  speculations  about 
Sources  used  in  the  Acts  i.-xii.  as  empty,  unmethodical  and 
valueless,  excepting  only  the  attempt  of  Bernhard  Weiss  to 
prove  that  one  such  written  Source  can  be  traced  here  and 
there  in  Acts  i.-xv. :  Weiss  detects  numerous  inconsis- 
tencies, and  explains  these  by  the  hypothesis  that  Luke 
was  here  only  a  Redactor,  who  failed  to  harmonise  his 
material  thoroughly.  But,  so  far  as  language  and  style  go, 
the  Author  finds  no  part  of  Acts  i.-xv.  that  can  be  separated 
from  the  rest  as  showing  signs  of  a  different  hand  and 
expression,  whereas  in  the  Third  Gospel  the  parts  common 
to  Luke  and  Mark,  and  those  common  to  Luke  and  Matthew, 
show  such  signs  distinctly.  On  the  ground  of  difficulties 
regarding  facts  and  the  treatment  of  facts,  the  Author  is 
disposed  to  consider  that  Luke  used  a  written  Source  for 
the  episodes  in  which  Peter  plays  the  chief  part ;  but  the 
Source  was  Aramaic  and  Luke  translated  it  himself,  so  that 


5^  I.  Luke 

his  own  style  appears  alone  in  the  Greek  form.^  Even  in 
this  case,  however,  the  hypothesis  that  oral  information 
alone  was  used  by  Luke  cannot  (in  his  opinion)  be  con- 
vincingly disproved. 

The  Author  rightly  attaches  great  importance  to  the 
proof  that  the  writer  of  the  Third  Gospel  and  the  Acts  was 
a  physician.  The  same  personality  is  felt  throughout. 
The  proofs  are  found  in  all  parts  of  the  work,  both  those 
written  by  Luke  as  an  eye-witness  and  those  which  he  has 
borrowed  from  Sources  that  are  known  to  us.  The  Author 
enumerates  six  classes  of  proofs  : — 

1.  The  presentation  of  the  subject  as  a  whole  to  the 
reader  is  determined  to  a  certain  degree  by  point  of  view, 
aims  and  ideals  of  a  medical  character. 

2.  Acts  of  healing  are  recorded  in  abundance  and  with 
especial  interest 

3.  The  language  of  the  history  is  coloured  by  the  speech 
of  physicians  (in  the  way  of  technical  medical  terms,  etc.). 

These  three  proofs,  however,  are  not  sufficient,  Jesus 
did  much  as  the  great  physician  and  healer  ;  and  it  must 
be  the  case  that  the  four  Gospels  should  vary  in  the  atten- 
tion which  they  pay  to  this  side  of  His  work  and  character, 
and  that  one  must  go  beyond  the  others  in  this  respect. 
It  would  not  follow  that  the  one  which  goes  beyond  the 
others  was  written  by  a  ph}^sician.  But  these  proofs  are 
raised  to  a  demonstration  by  the  following  reasons  : — 

4.  The  description  of  the  several  cases  of  sickness  men- 
tioned shows  the  observation  and  knowledge  that  mark  a 
physician. 

^  In  the  Third  Gospel  the  parts  common  to  Luke  and  Matthew  rest 
ultimately  on  an  Aramaic  Source,  but  the  Author  considers  that  Luke 
used  a  Greek  translation  from  the  original  Aramaic,  and  did  not  himself 
translate.     See  below,  p.  74. 


the  Physician  57 

5.  The  language  of  Luke,  even  when  he  is  not  treating 
of  medical  matters  and  acts  of  healing,  has  a  medical  colour. 

6.  Where  Luke  is  speaking  as  an  eye-witness,  the  medical 
element  is  specially  clearly  visible. 

The  proof  of  these  six  propositions  lies  in  the  cumulative 
effect  of  a  great  number  of  small  details  scattered  over  the 
whole  of  Acts  and  the  Gospel.  It  is,  of  course,  impossible 
to  give  any  analysis  of  such  a  demonstration.  There  are 
few  striking  cases  to  quote  even  as  specimens  ;  and  one  or 
two  samples  would  give  no  conception  of  the  strength  of 
the  cumulative  proof.  One  of  the  most  effective  instances 
has  been  quoted  above,  p.  16. 

This  topic  leads  up  to  a  question  which  I  do  not  remem- 
ber to  have  seen  adequately  discussed.  Even  in  the  passages 
that  have  been  taken  over  by  Luke  from  the  Source  which 
we  still  possess  almost  in  its  original  form  in  the  Gospel  of 
Mark,  wherever  there  occurs  any  reference  to  illness  or 
medical  treatment  of  sick  persons,  Luke  almost  invariably 
alters  the  expression  more  or  less,  as  in  v.  18  he  changes 
the  term  "  a  paralytic  "  -  of  Mark  ii.  3  to  "  a  man  who  was 
paralysed ".  He  could  hardly  ever  rest  satisfied  with  the 
popular  untrained  language  used  about  medical  matters  by 
Mark.'^ 

In  some  cases  the  change  does  not  imply  really  more 
than  is  contained  in  the  original  Source,  and  amounts  only 
to  a  more  scientific  and  medically  accurate  description  of 
the  fact  related  in  the  Source.  But  in  other  cases  a  real 
addition  to  knowledge  is  involved,  as  appears,  e.g.,  from  the 
following  examples : — 

^  "  A  man  sick  of  the  palsy  "  in  the  Authorised  Version. 
'This  is   the  second  class   of  alterations,  systematically  introduced  by 
Luke  into  the  parts  which  he  takes  from  Mark,  as  mentioned  on  p.  47. 


58  I.  Luke 

1.  Mark  iii.  I  speaks  of  a  man  with  a  withered  hand ; 
Luke  vi.  6  adds  that  it  was  the  right  hand  :  the  medical 
mind  demands  such  specification. 

2.  Luke  viii.  27  adds  to  Mark  v.  2  that  the  possessed  man 
had  for  a  long  time  worn  no  clothes :  this  was  a  symptom  of 
the  insanity  that  a  physician  would  not  willingly  omit, 

3.  In  Luke  viii.  55  the  physician  mentions  that  Jairus' 
daughter  called  for  food  {cf.  Mark  v.  42).  Various  other 
examples  occur. 

In  such  cases  are  we  to  suppose  that  Luke  simply  made 
these  additions  without  any  authority,  inventing  them  as 
natural  and  probable  ?  That  is  the  Author's  decided  opinion 
(p.  130,  n.  4) ;  according  to  him,  these  are  examples  of  Luke's 
carelessness  about  fact  and  truth.  But  why  must  we  suppose 
that  Luke,  who  in  the  Author's  opinion  had  access  to  so 
many  oral  sources  of  information,  and  who  so  often  used 
sources  of  this  kind  in  both  books  of  his  history,  never  had 
access  to  any  oral  authority  for  any  event  narrated  by  Mark  ?  ^ 
Is  it  not  more  natural  to  suppose  that  the  authorities  with 
whom  he  had  conversed  told  him  sometimes  about  incidents 
which  Mark  records;  and  that,  while  he  preferred  to  use 
Mark's  account  as  his  basis,  he  made  additions  in  some  cases 
from  other  authorities  ?  Those  who  reject  wholly  the  pos- 
sibility that  Luke  could  have  had  access  to  any  good  oral  au- 
thority possessed  of  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  facts,  are 
justified  in  regarding  those  additions  as  pure  invention  ;  but 
it  seems  inconsistent  in  the  Author  to  maintain  that  Luke's 
witnesses  (whom  he  admits  to  be  first-rate)  confined  their 
statements  strictly  to  matters  that  Mark  omitted.  Moreover, 
Luke  is  known  to  have  used  at  least  one  written  Source,  apart 
from  Mark ;  we  can  trace  it  where  it  was  employed  by  both 
•  See  above,  p.  44. 


the  Physician  59 

Luke  and  Matthew.  There  were  perhaps  cases  in  which  Luke 
gathered  information  from  it,  though  Matthew  did  not  use 
it  (see  below,  p.  77). 

The  question  inevitably  arises,  What  effect  will  this  book 
have  on  general  opinion  ?  The  interest  and  value  of  the  book, 
as  has  been  already  said,^  seems  to  lie  even  more  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  thought  of  a  striking  modern  personality,  viz.,  the 
distinguished  Author,  than  in  the  study  of  Luke.  It  shows 
the  Author  on  the  threshold  of  the  twentieth  century  thought, 
yet  not  able  completely  to  shake  off  the  fetters  and  emerge 
out  of  the  narrow  methods  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  Professor  Harnack's  book, 
highly  as  we  must  estimate  the  ability  and  the  clever  ratio- 
cination displayed  in  it,  will  change  any  one's  opinion  or 
convince  any  one  who  was  not  already  convinced  of  the  truth 
that  Luke  the  companion  of  Paul  wrote  the  Third  Gospel 
and  the  Acts.  Its  method  is  too  deeply  infected  with  the 
vice  of  most  modern  investigations  into  questions  of  the  kind  : 
it  is  too  purely  verbal ;  it  has  too  little  hold  on  realities  and 
facts.  The  history  of  literary  criticism  of  ancient  documents 
during  the  last  fifty  years  has  demonstrated  that  by  such 
purely  verbal  criticism  one  can  prove  anything  and  nothing. 
Almost  all  the  real  progress  that  has  been  made  comes  from 
the  discovery  of  new  evidence,  and  not  from  verbal  criticism 
of  the  old  books.  It  is  only  by  bringing  the  old  books  into 
comparison  with  facts  and  life  that  they  can  be  profitably 
studied. 

It  is  difficult  to  think  that  the  Author  himself  can  attach 
much  value  to  the  verbal  proofs  which  he  gathers  together  in 
his  third  Appendix,  with  the  intention  of  showing  that  the 

'  See  above  p.  lo. 


6o  I.  Luke 

letter  of  the  Council  in  Jerusalem  (Acts  xv.  23-29)  is  the  free 
composition  of  Luke  without  any  written  authority.  I  can- 
not imagine  that  the  Author  arrived  at  his  opinion  on  the 
strength  of  the  verbal  evidence,  which  is  singularly  weak  and 
■conflicting;  and,  in  fact,  he  confesses  on  p.  154  that  the 
verbal  arguments  are  perhaps  less  important  than  the  reasons 
of  fact  and  history.  One  feels  that  his  opinion  was  reached 
first  on  the  latter  ground,  and  the  verbal  reasons  are  mere 
buttresses  added  afterwards  in  the  attempt  to  support  the 
tottering  pile.  One  notes  with  real  regret  the  special  plead- 
ing in  the  comments  on  xv.  23,  where  Kara  in  ol  Kara  ttjv 
^ApTLox^i'dv  Kol  ^vplav  is  proved  to  be  a  Lukan  usage  (as  if 
any  one  could  doubt  this)  by  comparison  with  the  totally 
different  sense  of  Kara  in  Acts  ii.  10,  Ac/3vr)<i  r^?  Kara  Kvprjvr^v. 
It  needs  no  demonstration  that  Luke  could  use  the  preposi- 
tion with  an  accusative ;  so  could  any  other  Greek  speaker 
from  the  Danube  to  the  Nile,  and  from  the  Atlantic  Ocean 
to  the  Persian  Gulf.  And  the  attempt  to  make  out,  in 
defiance  of  the  plain  sense  and  linguistic  usage,  that  ol  Trpecr- 
^vrepoL  ahek<^oi  is  the  easy  reading  and  ol  irpea^vrepot,  ical 
oi  aBe\<f>oi  the  more  difficult  reading,  and  therefore  more 
liable  to  alteration,  mixes  up  argument  and  meaning  in  the 
style  of  a  lawyer  pleading  a  bad  case. 

The  same  character  attaches  to  much  of  the  commentary 
on  the  following  verses.  What  bearing  has  it  on  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  Council  or  Luke  composed  the  letter  that 
dirayyiWetv  (which  is  found  in  verse  27)  is  used  by  Luke 
twenty-five  times,  by  Mark  only  twice,  and  John  twice  ?i 
What  reason  does  this  give  for  thinking  that  the  Apostles 
could  not  use  the  word?     Paul  uses  it  twice,  the    Epistle 

1  There  are  some  textual  differences  on  this  point.  Moulton  and  Geden 
give  it  five  times  in  Mark,  three  times  in  John. 


the  Physician  6i 


to  the  Hebrews  has  it,  the  Septuagint  has  it,  Matthew  uses 
it  eight  times. 

Why  point  out  that  Matthew  and  Mark  do  not  use  the 
perfect  of  aTroo-TeX-Xft) ;  as  if  that  had  any,  even  the  remotest, 
bearing  on  the  question  ?  Both  use  the  verb  very  frequently, 
and  as  a  matter  of  fact  Matthew  has  the  perfect  passive  in 
xxiii,  2)7'  John  uses  the  verb  and  its  perfect  freely.  Paul, 
Peter  and  Hebrews  have  it  (the  first  using  even  the  perfect 
active).  Similar  remarks  rise  to  one's  lips  in  a  good  many 
other  parts  of  this  short  commentary  :  many  of  the  notes 
are  absolutely  irrelevant,  and  prove  nothing,  do  not  even 
point  towards  anything.  Why  heap  them  up?  They 
merely  weaken  the  Author's  argument,  for  they  show  that 
he  has  tried  every  way  and  found  nothing  to  buttress  his  case. 

But,  while  the  Author  spends  several  pages  in  this  dis- 
cussion, he  does  not  explain  his  position  on  the  really  im- 
portant questions  that  arise  about  this  letter.  His  position 
is  far  more  difficult  in  this  instance  than  that  of  the  more 
thorough-going  "critics,"  who  maintain  that  Acts  was  com- 
posed by  a  late  writer :  they  find  it  quite  natural  that  this 
late  writer  should  have  to  make  up  this  document  from  his 
own  resources.  But  the  Author  considers  that  the  his- 
torical Luke,  the  companion  of  Paul,  wrote  the  Acts,  and 
that  Luke  was  in  the  closest  relations  with  Paul  during  the 
latter  part  of  the  very  journey  in  which  (he  tells  us)  Paul 
delivered  this  letter  to  all  his  non-Jewish  converts  in  the 
Galatian  cities  as  an  authoritative  guide  for  their  conduct  in 
life.  Luke  certainly  makes  it  clear  and  inevitable  that  this 
Decree  of  the  Council  at  Jerusalem  was  the  solution  of  the 
difficulty  for  himself  and  for  all  in  his  position.  Now  what 
every  one  asks  from  the  Author,  and  what  he  is  bound  to 
furnish,   is  some  explanation  of  the  matter.     How  does  it 


62  I.  Luke 

come  that  Luke  was  so  entirely  ignorant  o{  the  words  of  a 
Decree  which  he  describes  as  of  such  immense  importance, 
and  which  Paul  had  in  his  hands  when  he  met  Luke  at  Troas  ? 
Or  if  Luke  knew  the  words  of  the  Decree,  does  the  Author 
seriously  believe,  and  wish  to  make  us  believe,  that  the  his- 
torian threw  aside  the  real  Decree  and  composed  a  sham  one 
in  its  place?  Finally,  the  Author  must  explain  what  he  con- 
siders to  be  the  relation  between  the  sham  Decree  and  the 
real  one.  Do  they  state  the  same  thing,  or  different  things? 
If  the  same,  why  does  Luke  in  this  case  rewrite  a  document 
entirely,  whereas  in  other  cases  (as  the  Author  proves  so 
carefully  and  so  conclusively)  he  retains  so  much  of  his 
original  Source?  Or  does  the  Author  consider  that  the 
Council  was  a  pure  fiction,  the  Decree  a  mere  invention, 
and  the  story  that  Paul  carried  it  to  Antioch  and  delivered 
it  to  his  Galatian  converts  an  elaborate  lie  ?  If  that  be 
so,  how  does  he  reconcile  this  with  Lukan  authorship? 
He  declares  that  Luke  is  to  the  last  degree  careless  of  truth 
and  consistency ;  but  such  elaborate  falsification  goes  far 
beyond  mere  carelessness  ;  it  implies  wilful  intention  to  mis- 
lead. 

These  are  not  questions  that  can  be  evaded.  They  must 
be  answered,  in  order  to  make  Professor  Harnack's  view 
intelligible  and  rational  to  us,  who  desire  to  understand 
him.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  waive  them  aside  (as  the 
Author  does)  on  the  plea  that  they  have  been  discussed  by 
others ;  for  these  others  think  differently  about  essential 
points. 

On  this  question  the  Author's  argument  is  mainly  of 
words ;  yet  one  does  not  feel  that  it  was  through  these 
studies  of  words  that  he  attained  his  present  opinions. 
Where  the  verbal  argument  of  this  book  possesses  demon- 


the  Physician  63 

strative  value,  it  has  more  than  words  to  rest  on.  Thus,  in 
the  study  of  the  parts  common  to  Mark  and  Luke,  the 
reasoning  rests  on  the  firm  foundation  of  the  original  written 
Source,  and  investigates  the  process  by  which  Luke  trans- 
formed this  original  into  the  words  of  the  Third  Gospel. 
In  the  study  of  the  "  We  "-passages  it  has  a  large  extent  of 
varied  narrative  to  deal  with,  and  it  cannot  wholly  neglect 
the  facts.  But,  when  the  Author  takes  small  pieces  like  the 
song  of  Mary  or  the  Decree  of  the  Council  of  Jerusalem, 
and  analyses  the  language  and  rests  purely  on  verbal  statistics, 
we  fail  to  find  strength  in  the  reasoning. 

Take  as  a  specimen  with  which  to  finish  off  this  paper, 
the  passage  Acts  xxviii,  9  f.,  which  is  very  fully  discussed 
by  the  Author  twice  (pp.  il  f.  and  123  f.).  He  argues  that 
the  true  meaning  of  the  passage  was  not  understood  until 
medical  language  was  compared,  when  it  was  shown  that  the 
word  Kadrjyjrev,  by  which  the  act  of  the  viper  to  Paul's 
hand  is  described,  implies  "  bit,"  and  not  merely  "  fastened 
upon".  But  it  is  a  well-assured  fact  that  the  viper,  a 
poisonous  snake,  only  strikes,  fixes  the  poison-fangs  in  the 
flesh  for  a  moment,  and  withdraws  its  head  instantly.  Its 
action  could  never  be  what  is  attributed  by  Luke  the  eye- 
witness to  this  Maltese  viper ;  that  it  hung  from  Paul's  hand, 
and  was  shaken  off  into  the  fire  by  him.  On  the  other 
hand,  constrictors,  which  have  no  poison-fangs,  cling  in  the 
way  described,  but  as  a  rule  do  not  bite.  Are  we  then  to 
understand,  in  spite  of  the  medical  style  and  the  authority 
of  Professor  Blass  (who  translates  "  momordit "  in  his  edition), 
that  the  viper  "  fastened  upon  "  the  Apostle's  hand  (Kadrjyjrep)  ? 
Then,  the  very  name  "  viper  "  is  a  difficulty.  Was  Luke 
mistaken  about  the  kind  of  snake  which  he  saw  ?  A 
trained  medical  man  in  ancient  times  was  usually  a  good 


64  I-  Luke 

authority  about  serpents,  to  which  great  respect  was  paid  in 
ancient  medicine  and  custom. 

Mere  verbal  study  is  here  utterly  at  fault.  We  can  make 
no  progress  without  turning  to  the  realities  and  facts 
of  Maltese  natural  history.  A  correspondent  *  obligingly 
informed  me  years  ago  that  Mr.  Bryan  Hook,  of  Famham, 
Surrey  (who,  my  correspondent  assures  me,  is  a  thoroughly 
good  naturalist),  had  found  in  Malta  a  small  snake,  Coronella 
Austriaca,  which  is  rare  in  England,  but  common  in  many 
parts  of  Europe.  It  is  a  constrictor,  without  poison-fangs, 
which  would  cling  to  the  hand  or  arm  as  Luke  describes. 
It  is  similar  in  size  to  the  viper,  and  so  like  in  markings 
and  general  appearance  that  Mr.  Hook,  when  he  caught 
his  specimen,  thought  he  was  killing  a  viper. 

My  friend.  Professor  J.  W.  H.  Trail,  of  Aberdeen,  whom 
I  consulted,  replied  that  Coronella  Icevis,  or  Austriaca,  is 
known  in  Sicily  and  the  adjoining  islands;  but  he  can 
find  no  evidence  of  its  existence  in  Malta  It  is  known  to 
be  rather  irritable,  and  to  fix  its  small  teeth  so  firmly  into 
the  human  skin  as  to  hang  on  and  need  a  little  force  to 
pull  it  ofT,  though  the  teeth  are  too  short  to  do  any  real 
injury  to  the  skin.  Coronella  is  at  a  glance  very  much  like 
a  viper ;  and  in  the  flames  it  would  not  be  closely  ex- 
amined. While  it  is  not  reported  as  found  in  Malta  except 
by  Mr.  Hook,  two  species  are  known  there  belonging  to  the 
same  family  and  having  similar  habits,  leopardinus  and 
zamenis  (or  coluber)  gemonensis.  The  colouring  of  C.  leopar- 
dinus would  be  the  most  likely  to  suggest  a  viper. 

These  observations  justify  Luke  entirely.  We  have  here 
a  snake  so  closely  resembling  a  viper  as  to  be  taken  for  one 
by  a  good  naturalist  until  he  had  caught  and  examined  a 
1  Mr.  A.  Sloman,  Kingslee,  Farndon,  Chester, 


the  Physician  65 

specimen.  It  clings,  and  yet  it  also  bites  without  doing 
harm.  That  the  Maltese  rustics  should  mistake  this  harmless 
snake  for  a  venomous  one  is  not  strange.  Many  uneducated 
people  have  the  idea  that  all  snakes  are  poisonous  in  varying 
degrees,  just  as  the  vulgar  often  firmly  believe  that  toads  are 
poisonous.  Every  detail  as  related  by  Luke  is  natural,  and 
in  accordance  with  the  facts  of  the  country. 

The  Author  quite  fairly  quotes  this  passage  as  an  example 
of  Luke's  love  for  the  marvellous.  One  cannot  doubt  that 
the  reason  for  its  appearance  in  Luke's  history  is  that  it 
seemed  to  the  writer  a  proof  of  Paul's  marvellous  powers. 
We  see  now  that,  while  it  was  bound  to  appear  marvellous 
to  Luke,  the  event  was  quite  simple  and  natural.  No  one 
can  doubt,  probably  hardly  any  scholar  has  ever  doubted, 
that  the  incident  is  narrated  by  an  eye-witness :  it  is  so  vivid 
and  so  direct,  so  evidently  a  transcript  from  life,  that  its 
character  is  self-evident.  But  of  what  value  would  mere 
verbal  examination  be  in  this  case  without  investigation  of 
the  real  facts  and  surroundings  in  which  the  incident 
occurred  ?  It  is  the  same  throughout  Luke's  history  from 
beginning  to  end.  One  may  refer  to  the  incidents  of  the 
stoning  and  reviving  of  Paul  at  Lystra,  and  the  recovery 
of  Eutychus  at  Troas,  which  are  not  necessarily  marvellous, 
but  which  both  Luke  and  the  public  assuredly  considered  to 
be  so;  yet  (as  is  shown  in  St,  Paul  the  Traveller)  Luke, 
while  revealing  what  was  the  general  belief  and  his  own, 
describes  the  events  simply  and  accurately,  without  intruding 
anything  that  forces  on  the  reader  his  own  marvellous  inter- 
pretation. 

Note. — A  word  must  be  added  about  the  meaning  of 
Eusebius's  statements  as  to  Luke's  origin,  to  fiev  yevo^;  wi/ 
Twv  dir^  ^AvTto')(eLa<i.     In  St.  Paul  the   Traveller,  p.  389,  I 

5 


66  I.  Luke 

expressed  the  opinion  that  this  peculiar  phrase,  used  in  pre- 
ference to  one  of  the  simple  ways  of  saying  that  he  was  an 
Antiochian  or  resided  at  Antioch,  amounted  to  an  assertion 
that  he  did  not  live  in  Antioch,  but  belonged  to  an  Antiochian 
family.  Professor  Hamack  does  not  say  anything  that  con- 
flicts with  my  statement  (so  far  as  I  have  observed),  though 
he  does  not  formally  agree  with  it,  and,  on  the  whole,  rather 
neglects  it ;  quite  probably  he  may  never  have  observed  it. 
But  several  others  have  disputed  it,  and  asserted  that 
Eusebius  describes  Luke  as  an  Antiochian.  Some  parallel 
passages  will  show  that  I  was  right ;  had  Luke  been  known 
to  Eusebius  as  an  Antiochian  himself,  the  historian  would 
not  have  said  that "  by  family  he  was  of  those  from  Antioch  ". 
Arrian,  hid.  i8,  mentions  Nearchos,  son  of  Androtimos, 
TO  'yivo'i  fiiv  Kpr)<;  6  N'eap')(0<i,  oJ/cee  he  iv  '^/A^tTToXet  t^  iirl 
^rpvfxovi  (compare  Bu//.  Corr.  Hell.,  1896,  p.  471).  Nearchos 
•was  by  family  a  Cretan,  but  he  resided  in  Amphipolis,  where 
iprobably  his  father  settled,  and  where  the  son  could  only  be 
a  resident  stranger,  not  a  citizen  :  ^  hence  he  continued  to  be 
"Cretan  by  family,  settled  in  Amphipolis".  Similarly  we 
find  in  an  epitaph  of  Olympos  in  Lycia  Telesphoros,  son  of 
Trophimos,  '^kvei  npvfjLvr]a€ov<;,^  a  resident  in  Olympos  and 
married  to  an  Olympian  woman  (Bull.  Corr.  Hell.,  1892,  p. 
224).     As  resident  strangers  acquired  no  citizenship,  it  was 

'  Unless  an  act  of  the  Macedonian  king  forced  the  confening  of  citizen- 
ship. 

^Though  I  have  no  right  to  decide  on  such  a  point,  I  should  be  disposed  to 
regard  Tlpvixvi\ffeois  as  the  better  accentuation :  the  form  is  due  to  rough  and 
coarse  local  pronunciation  of  Greek,  often  exemplified  in  inscriptions  of  Asia 
Minor :  many  examples  of  this  are  quoted  in  writings  on  Asia  Minor  of 
recent  date,  e.g.,  KarfffKeovcurav  for  leartaKtiaffav,  where  ov  must  be  regarded 
as  a  representation  of  the  sound  of  W.  In  Xlpvixtriffffois  it  represents  either  W  or 
the  modern  pronunciation  F.  See,  e.g.,  Histor,  Geogr.  of  As.  Min.,  p.  281; 
Studies  in  Eastern  Provinces  (1906),  p.  360. 


the  Physician  67 

necessary  to  have  some  method  of  desig^nating  them  in 
the  second  or  third  generation  :  had  Telesphorus  himself 
migrated  from  Phrygian  Prymnessios,  he  would  have  been 
called  IIpvfiv7)(r<T€v<;  oIkmv  iv  ^OXv/jlttq)  {Cities  and  Bisk,  of 
Phr.,  ii.,  p.  471),  or  more  formally  after  the  analogy  of  C.I.G. 
2686  (olKijcrei  /x€v  MelXrjaio^,  ^vaet  Bk  'laatihi).  Josephus, 
Ant.,  XX.,  7, 2,  speaks  of  Simon  resident  in  Caesareia  Stratonis 
as    'lovSaiov,  Kinrpiov  Se  y€vo<;. 

The  form  aTro  '0^vpvyxe(o<;,  etc.,  is  used  in  the  Egyptian 
Papyri  apparently  in  the  sense  of  "  belonging  to  Oxyryn- 
chos,  etc.,"  without  any  implication  that  the  person  was  not 
resident  there ;  but  in  this  expression  the  critical  word  761/09 
is  omitted  :  examples  are  numerous,  e.g.,  'A\oivr}<;,  Ka>fiovo^, 
Aiovvcriov,  tS)v  airo  'Ofupiry^^wv  ttoXco)?,  Grenfell  and  Hunt, 
Oxyr.  No.  48,  49. 

The  form  roiv  airo  is  also  used  in  a  way  different  from 
the  last  example,  equivalent  to  ex  tmv,  e.g.,  viro  Ne^kpi,ro<: 
T&v  aTTo  Me/jL<f)€a)<i,  Greek  Papyri  Br.  Mus.  p.  32  (Nepheris 
was  resident  in  Memphis) ;  compare  also  Kdaropo^  .  .  . 
rS)v  OTTO  K(o/j,r}(}  ^AKtitpeusf;  KaraffGLVofievlovY  iv  Kcofir)  Mvd^ei, 
Amherst  Papyri,  88.  In  the  second  case  Castor  was  not  a 
resident  in  his  proper  village  :  in  the  former  case  it  is  possible 
that  the  formula  is  used  in  a  papyrus  of  the  Serapeum, 
because  Nepheris  was  at  the  moment  at  the  Serapeum  outside 
of  Memphis.  But  I  do  not  venture  to  make  any  statement 
about  Egyptian  usage.  Literary  usage  certainly  has  a  dis- 
tinguishing sense  for  rStv  diro,  e.g.,  2l€^rjpo<;  r&v  dno  t^? 
ava>0€v  ^pvylaf;,  Aristides,  i.,  p.  505  (Dindorf):  this  Roman 
officer  of  high  rank  belonged  to  a  Jewish  family  of  Upper 
Phrygia  and  also  of  Ancyra,  but  he  was  not  a  resident  in 

'  w(  in  pap.,  corrected  to  [ov]  by  the  editors :  the  writer  made  a  gram- 
matical blunder,  which  ought  not  to  be  improved  by  editors. 


68  I.  Luke  the  Physician 

Upper  Phrygia,  for  we  know  his  career  of  Roman  service 
(Waddington,  Pastes,  p.  218) ;  in  fact,  considering  the  customs 
that  ruled  at  the  period  in  question,  he  was  probably  not 
even  educated  in  Upper  Phrygia,  but  in  Italy,  as  he  was 
able  to  enter  the  senatorial  career  when  a  youth. 

The  expression  rSiv  airo  is  also  used  in  the  sense  of 
"  descended  from  a  person,"  e.g.^  t&u  utt'  "^pSvo?  'HpaKXeiB&v 
{Bull.  Corr.  Hell.,  1892,  p.  218),  "  of  the  Heracleids  descended 
from  Ardys,"  the  Lydian  king. 

Frankel,  Inschr.  Perg.,  i.,  p.  170,  takes  the  phrase  appended 
to  a  royal  letter,  ' Adr)vw^opa^  e«  Uepydfiov,  as  meaning 
that  Athenagoras  the  scribe  was  not  a  Pergamenian  citizen, 
but  a  resident  only.  But  the  meaning  is,  "Athenagoras 
(was  the  scribe:  the  letter  was  written)  from   Pergamos". 


11. 

THE  OLDEST  WRITTEN  GOSPEL. 


II. 

THE  OLDEST  WRITTEN   GOSPEL. 

In  reviewing  Professor  Harnack's  study  oiLuke  the  Physician 
we  found  that  the  best  part  of  a  very  notable  book  was  the 
comparison  of  the  sections  which  are  common  to  Luke  and 
Mark,  and  the  analysis  of  the  relation  between  those  two 
writers.  In  this  detailed  comparison  the  Author  could  not 
confine  himself  to  considerations  of  words  (that  vice  of  the 
nineteenth  century) ;  he  was  obliged  constantly  to  take  into 
consideration  the  things  of  real  life;  and  we  observed  in 
this  case,  as  often  before,  that  Lukan  criticism  keeps  right 
only  when  the  study  of  words  is  constantly  controlled  and 
directed  by  the  observation  of  facts  and  realities. 

The  problem  before  the  Author  was  to  determine  the 
principles  on  which  Luke  had  dealt  with  the  narrative  of  his 
authority,  Mark.  This  task,  which  would  have  been  im- 
possible if  the  authority  had  perished,  was  facilitated  by  the 
fact  that  the  same  original  document  which  Luke  employed 
in  those  sections  lies  now  before  us  as  the  Gospel  of  Mark ; 
and  it  is  possible  to  see  exactly  what  changes  Luke  in- 
troduced, and  to  determine  what  reasons  and  principles 
guided  him  in  making  certain  modifications  in  the  narrative 
of  Mark.  As  a  whole,  the  result  of  the  Author's  examination 
was  that  Luke  reproduces  the  facts  accurately,  that  he  to  a 
certain  degree  changes  the  words  in  the  interests  of  literary 
style,  but  that  even  these  verbal  changes  are  generally 
confined  to  single  words  or  short  phrases ;  and  that  there  is 

(71) 


72  II.    The  Oldest 


a  notable  absence  of  all  attempt  to  introduce  new  meaning 
into  Mark's  narrative  or  to  intrude  into  the  record  ideas 
belonging  to  the  age  when  Luke  was  writing.  Luke  im- 
proves the  language  of  Mark,  where  he  follows  him ;  but  re- 
presents his  meaning  with  impartial  and  remarkable  fidelity. 
Where  he  desires  in  his  Gospel  to  give  more  information  than 
Mark  gives,  he  generally  does  it  in  distinct  sections,  based 
evidently  on  other  authorities,  written  or  oral.^  And  the  fair 
presumption  is  that  he  represents  those  other  authorities  with 
the  same  perfect  fidelity  as  he  shows  in  the  case  of  Mark, 

We  found  ourselves  compelled  to  differ  from  the  Author 
chiefly  in  two  respects.  In  the  first  place,  there  were  other 
parts  of  his  work  in  which  he  seemed  to  be  too  much  under 
the  influence  of  purely  verbal  methods,  a  kind  of  reasoning 
of  which  we  entertain  a  profound  distrust,  and  one  which 
has  led  to  many  errors  in  many  departments  of  literature; 
purely  literary  considerations  of  language  and  style  often 
afford  valuable  suggestions  and  start  new  trains  of  thought, 
but  they  have  never  produced  any  results  that  can  be  relied 
on  permanently,  except  when  they  are  constantly  guided  and 
tested  and  controlled  by  more  objective  and  real  methods. 
The  plan  of  the  Author's  new  book,  which  forms  the  subject 
of  the  present  article,  leaves  little  or  no  room  for  this 
faulf^ 

In  the  second  place,  the  Author  seemed  to  us  occasionally 
to  have  not  quite  freed  himself  from  certain  prepossessions 

^  We  were,  however,  disposed  to  believe  (differing  herein  from  the  Author) 
that  occasionally  Luke  modified  or  completed  a  statement  of  Mark  by  know- 
ledge gained  from  some  other  source  (see  p.  58);  though  these  modifications 
do  not  amount  to  changes  of  essential  facts. 

''Spruche  und  Reden  Jesu,  die  zweite  Quelle  des  Matthaeus  und  dts 
Lukas :  Leipzig,  Hinrichs,  1907.  Beitrdge  zur  Einleitung  in  das  Neue 
Testament,  II.  Heft.  Since  the  present  article  was  first  published,  a  transla- 
tion by  Rev.  J.  R.  Wilkinson,  M.A.,  has  appeared  (Williams  &  Norgate,  1908), 


Written  Gospel  73 


and  assumptions  which  ruled  the  hard  and  unilluminative 
criticism  of  the  later  nineteenth  century.  That  that  criticism 
was  needed  as  a  protest  against  older  dogmatism  and  previous 
assumptions,  I  should  be  the  last  to  deny,  and  have  always 
freely  admitted;  but  it  was  only  on  the  destructive  side  that 
it  was  sound ;  its  attempts  at  reconstruction  were  valueless 
and  misleading,  because  the  negative  presumptions  from 
which  it  started  vitiated  all  its  positive  inferences. 

In  the  Author's  new  book,  Sayings  and  Speeches  of  Jesus, 
forming  the  second  part  of  his  Contributions  to  the  Intro- 
duction to  the  New  Testament,  the  method  of  detailed  com- 
parison, which  ruled  in  the  best  portion  of  his  Luke  the 
Physician,  is  carried  out  even  more  completely,  and  forms 
the  basis  of  the  whole  study.  Hence  I  find  myself  in  cordial 
agreement  with  the  method  and  the  results  to  a  much 
greater  degree  than  in  the  previous  case.  The  main  result, 
that  the  lost  Common  Source  of  Luke  and  Matthew  was 
a  work  earlier  than  Mark,  appears  to  me  to  be  firmly  estab- 
lished, and  to  lead  straight  to  conclusions  of  the  highest  im- 
portance. Although  those  conclusions  are  not  in  harmony 
with  the  Author's  opinions,  they  seem  to  me  to  spring  in- 
evitably from  his  main  line  of  argument. 

That  the  first,  and  in  many  respects  the  most  important, 
authority  on  which  Matthew  as  well  as  Luke  relied  was  the 
Gospel  of  Mark,  practically  in  the  form  in  which  we  possess  it, 
is  now  generally  admitted.  In  studying  the  relation  of  Luke 
to  this  Source,  the  Author  did  not  require  to  take  into  account 
Matthew's  version  of  the  same  Source,  because  Luke  was 
wholly  independent  of  Matthew,  and  the  Source  still  lies 
before  us.  But  in  the  case  of  the  second  Common  Source  of 
Luke  and  Matthew,  the  problem  is  a  far  more  complicated 
and  difficult  one.     The  Source  has  been  lost,  and  it  is  only 


74  n.    The  Oldest 


through  the  comparison  of  Luke  and  Matthew  that  we  can 
recover  an  outline  of  its  contents  and  character,  and  to  a 
certain  extent  reconstruct  the  lost  original  document.  This 
original  is  for  brevity's  sake  referred  to  as  Q;  and  on  pp. 
88-102  the  Author  prints  all  of  it  that  he  believes  to  be 
recoverable  with  certainty  or  high  probability.  As  he  says 
himself,  it  is  necessary  to  fall  back  occasionally  on  conjecture 
and  hypothesis,  as  the  evidence  does  not  justify  perfect 
confidence. 

In  the  course  of  this  article  we  shall  diverge  slightly  from 
the  Author's  custom,  and  shall  use  the  symbol  Q  to  denote 
the  restored  form  of  the  lost  Source,  as  given  by  him,  pp. 
88-102,  while  we  shall  refer  to  the  Source  in  its  complete  and 
original  form  (which  was  indubitably  longer,  perhaps  much 
longer,  than  the  Author's  restoration),  by  some  circumlocution^ 
such  as  "  the  lost  Common  Source  "  or  "  the  Collection  of  Say- 
ings" (a  name  used  by  the  Author,  but  not  in  our  view  an 
adequate  name,  though  it  perhaps  rests  on  ancient  authority). 

The  original  of  Q  was  written  in  Aramaic;  but  both 
Luke  and  Matthew  used  the  same  Greek  translation,  and 
therefore  throughout  the  Author's  work  Q  denotes  a  certain 
Greek  book,  and  not  the  older  Aramaic  original.  The 
question  is  mentioned  whether  Luke  or  Matthew  may 
occasionally  have  gone  behind  the  Greek  form  Q  and  con- 
sulted the  Aramaic  original  for  some  details ;  but  the 
Author  is  confident  that  such  a  procedure,  if  it  ever  hap- 
pened, was  extremely  rare,  and  that  generally  Q  alone  may 
safely  be  assumed  as  the  single  and  final  source  of  a  certain 
portion  of  Luke  and  Matthew,  about  one-sixth  of  the  former 
and  two-elevenths  of  the  latter.  Perhaps  Aramaic  scholars 
might  differ  from  the  Author  on  this  question :  it  is  under- 
stood that  one  well-known  English  scholar,  who  has  always 


Written  Gospel  75 


taken  a  very  different  view,  still  adheres  to  his  own  opinion. 
But  at  least  there  can  hardly  be  any  doubt  that  a  Greek 
translation  did  exist,  and  was  used  by  both  Luke  and 
Matthew,  whether  or  not  they  controlled  it  by  consulting 
the  Aramaic  in  addition.  And  the  Author  seems  also  to 
have  established  his  theory  of  Q  to  the  extent  that  his 
restoration  can  be  relied  on  as  giving  a  fair  amount  of  the 
original  document  in  a  trustworthy  form  and  as  permitting 
certain  positive  inferences,  but  not  negative  inferences 
founded  on  the  failure  of  any  particular  incident  in  his 
restoration  of  Q.  There  is  much  probability  that  in  some 
cases  the  lost  Common  Source  was  much  longer  than  the 
restored  Q. 

Incidentally,  in  this  study  of  the  two  largest  Sources 
which  Luke  and  Matthew  made  use  of,  one  must  be  strongly 
impressed  with  the  utter  impossibility  of  recovering  from 
any  single  author  alone  the  authorities  which  he  tran- 
scribed. Let  any  one  take  Luke's  Gospel  by  itself,  or 
Matthew's  Gospel  by  itself,  and  examine  verse  by  verse  the 
parts  that  come  from  Q  and  from  Mark  respectively.  He 
must  conclude  that  the  problem  of  analysing  either  the 
Third  or  the  First  Gospel  separately  and  distinguishing  the 
Q-parts,  the  Mark-parts,  and  the  parts  taken  neither  from 
Q  nor  from  Mark,  would  have  been  quite  insoluble  without 
extraneous  help. 

And,  more  than  this,  if  Mark  were  lost,  while  both 
Luke  and  Matthew  were  preserved,  it  would  of  course  be 
easy  to  distinguish  the  common  Matthaeo-Lukan  parts 
from  the  parts  peculiar  to  each  ;  but  it  would  be  utterly 
impossible  to  analyse  that  common  Matthaeo-Lukan  Gospel 
into  its  two  parts,  the  Markan  and  the  non-Markan.  Only 
the   existence  of  Mark  makes  it  possible   to  tell  what   is 


76  II.   The  Oldest 


Markan  and  what  is  non-Markan.  Yet  take  Q  by  itself, 
and  read  it  apart  from  Mark,  and  the  least  observant 
scholar  must  be  struck  by  the  difference  of  character,  style, 
language,  and  point  of  view. 

Further,  if  one  took  Luke's  Gospel  by  itself,  and  pro- 
ceeded according  to  some  definite  peculiarity,  such  as,  for 
example,  the  name  of  the  Holy  City,  starting  from  the 
principle  that  the  passages  in  which  the  Hebrew  form 
Jerusalem  was  used  were  founded  on  a  different  original 
Source  from  those  parts  in  which  the  Greek  form  Hiero- 
solyma  was  used,  how  misleading  and  absurd  would  be 
the  results  of  such  an  hypothesis !  So  in  the  Acts,  the  old 
"critical"  (or  rather  uncritical)  idea  that  the  use  of  the 
names  Paul  and  Saul  indicated  two  different  Sources  has 
probably  been  abandoned  by  even  the  most  unenlightened 
and  unprogressive  of  modem  scholars.  It  has  long  been 
proved  conclusively  that  Luke  had  a  definite  purpose  in 
distinguishing  the  names  Paul  and  Saul,  and  employed 
sometimes  the  one,  sometimes  the  other,  for  the  sake  of 
historical  effect.  So,  also,  he  had  a  clear  purpose  of  his 
own  in  distinguishing  the  names  Jerusalem  and  Hierosolyma, 
and  he  actually  alters  Mark's  Hierosolyma  into  Jerusalem, 
in  order  to  carry  out  his  own  peculiar  purpose  (see  above, 

p.  51  ff.). 

The  futility  of  various  other  similar  criteria  might  be 
easily  shown,  if  it  were  worth  while ;  but  we  pass  on, 
only  pausing  for  a  moment  to  ask  whether  in  the  analysis 
of  the  Pentateuch  too  much  has  not  been  made  of  the 
distinction  between  the  two  names  of  God,  Elohim  and 
Jehovah  or  Yahwe.  Even  admitting  (as  we  do  fully)  that 
different  older  Sources  lie  behind  the  extant  form  of  the 
Pentateuch,   is   it   not   possible   that   there  may   be   some 


Written  Gospel  yj 


purpose  guiding  the  choice  of  the  final  compiler  or  author 
in  his  use  of  the  two  names  ?  I  always  bear  in  mind  the 
warning  words  which  Robertson  Smith  often  emphatically 
used  in  conversation,  that,  while  the  diverse  Sources  of  the 
Pentateuch  could  on  the  whole  and  in  the  rough  be  dis- 
tinguished, it  must  always  be  utterly  impossible  to  attain 
certainty  about  the  precise  points  and  lines  of  cleavage  in 
the  existing  text  (a  warning  which  has  been  wholly  forgotten 
by  some  scholars,  who  since  his  death  claim  to  speak  for  him 
and  to  present  his  views  on  current  questions  to  the  public). 

A  general  outline  of  this  pre-Lukan  and  pre-Matthaean 
Common  Source,  then,  can  be  recovered  from  the  agreement 
of  the  non-Markan  parts  of  Luke  and  Matthew ;  but,  of 
course,  there  remain  two  important  questions  to  be  deter- 
mined before  we  can  regard  the  resultant  group  of  literary 
fragments  as  a  full  and  trustworthy  representative  of  that 
old  book. 

In  the  first  place,  did  Luke  and  Matthew  take  the  whole 
of  the  lost  Common  Source  and  incorporate  it  in  their  re- 
spective Gospels  ?  Were  there  not  parts  of  that  book  which 
Luke  alone  or  Matthew  alone  extracted,  and  for  which 
therefore  we  have  only  one  authority  ?  It  seems  to  us 
probable,^  and  even  practically  certain,  that  there  was  a  good 
deal  which  only  one  of  them  incorporated  in  his  Gospel : 
Luke  treats  the  book  with  great  freedom,  and  puts  in 
different  parts  of  his  Gospel  scraps  of  it  which  Matthew 
places  side  by  side  as  continuous  exposition.  Such  freedom 
seems  quite  irreconcilable  with  the  idea  that  they  agreed  in 
utilising  the  entire  book.  This  part  of  the  Common  Source 
(which  we  believe  to  have  been  considerable)  is  for  the  most 
part  hopelessly  lost  to  us.     We  may  conjecture  that  certain 

^  The  Author  holds  the  same  opinion. 


78  II.    The  Oldest 


paragraphs  or  sentences  of  Matthew  alone  or  of  Luke  alone 
were  taken  from  the  lost  Source ;  and  in  such  cases  argu- 
ments from  language  or  style  or  thought  might  be  fairly 
brought  in  to  support  the  conjecture.  But  such  conjectures 
can  never  be  ranked  on  the  same  level  as  the  agreement 
of  Matthew  and  Luke  ;  and  they  do  not  apply  to  any  large 
continuous  part  of  the  book.  Yet  the  attempt  ought  to  be 
made,  and  will  certainly  be  often  made,  to  specify  and 
collect  those  parts  of  the  lost  Sources  that  were  used  only 
by  one  Evangelist.  The  Author  expressly  recognises  that 
this  is  a  work  which  awaits  and  will  reward  patient  investiga- 
tion (pp.  2,  I2l). 

Further,  are  there  not  passages  in  which  the  Source  coin- 
cided in  subject  with  Mark,  and  the  latter  seemed  to  Luke 
and  Matthew  to  be  preferable— r-not  necessarily  as  divergent, 
but  as  more  complete  or  better  expressed?  Was  it  the 
case — as  it  would  be  if  the  Author's  restoration  of  Q  were 
even  approximately  complete — that  the  lost  Source  never, 
or  hardly  ever,  covered  a  part  of  the  same  ground  as  Mark  ? 
There  seems  an  overwhelming  probability  that  two  such 
books  must  have  agreed  oftener  than  appears  in  the  Author's 
restoration.  It  is  clear  that  they  covered  the  same  ground 
as  regards  the  relations  of  Jesus  with  John  the  Baptist  and 
as  regards  the  Temptation,  but  covered  it  in  very  different 
ways.  In  the  case  of  the  Temptation,  for  example,  Mark 
restricts  himself  to  a  brief  sentence;  and  both  Luke  and 
Matthew  here  neglect  Mark  and  follow  Q.  Now  suppose  it 
had  happened  that  the  lost  Common  Source  had  been  pre- 
served, but  that  Mark  had  perished  and  we  were  attempting 
to  restore  his  Gospel  from  the  agreement  of  Luke  and 
Matthew,  some  critics  would  certainl  maintainy  that  Mark 
had  never  heard  of  the  Temptation.     As  it  is,  we  can  see 


Written  Gospel  79 


that  there  is  no  inconsistency  or  disagreement  on  this  point 
between  Mark  and  Q  ;  but  the  latter  is  far  more  detailed  and 
complete.  Were  there  not  many  cases  in  which  the  sharp 
and  clear  narrative  of  Mark  was  preferred  by  the  two  later 
Synoptics  to  a  brief  allusion  in  the  lost  Common  Source  ? 
This  seems  to  us  inevitably  to  have  been  the  case ;  and  all 
these  parts  of  Q,  which  were  distinctly  inferior  to  Mark  in 
historical  import  and  weight,  are  now  hopelessly  lost. 

The  consequence  of  this  loss  has  been  that  Q  has  the 
appearance  of  being  almost  wholly  confined  to  Sayings  and 
Speeches  of  Jesus.  This  appearance  we  must  consider  to 
be  untrue  to  the  real  character  of  the  original  lost  Source. 
It  is  clear  even  from  the  agreement  of  Luke  and  Matthew 
that  Q  was  not  quite  free  from  narrative :  the  parts  relating 
to  John  the  Baptist  and  the  Temptation  and  the  Centurion 
of  Capernaum  contain  some  narrative ;  several  sections  in 
the  Author's  Q,  3,  18,  22,  29,  30,  54,  and  others,  must 
obviously  have  been  accompanied  by  ^ome  narrative,  how- 
ever brief.  In  many  others  it  is  inconceivable  that  a  first- 
hand authority  (as  the  Author  considers  the  writer  of  Q  to 
have  been)  could  have  sent  down  to  posterity,  or  published 
for  his  contemporaries,  such  a  disjointed  and  disconnected 
scrap  as  that  which  can  be  got  from  the  agreement  of 
Matthew  and  Luke. 

We  must,  therefore,  conclude  that  there  was  more  narrative 
in  the  lost  original  document  than  appears  now  in  Q,  and 
that  sections  i,  2,  13,  14  ^  of  the  Author's  restoration  give  a 
truer  conception  of  its  character  than  most  of  the  other 
sections.  It  was  not  a  mere  collection  of  sayings,  but  a 
narrative,  noted  down  by  a  person  whose  interest  lay  mainly 
in  the  sayings  and  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  and  who  made  the 

'The  Baptist,  the  Temptation,  the  Centurion. 


8o  II.    The  Oldest 


narrative  subsidiary  to  the  speeches.  This  person  wrote, 
not  with  the  purpose  of  composing  a  biography,  but  from 
interest  in  the  character  and  the  teaching  of  a  remarkable 
personality,  recording  what  He  said,  and  employing  narrative 
mainly  in  order  to  make  the  recorded  words  more  significant 
and  more  instructive.  In  the  account  of  the  Temptation 
it  is  evident  that  the  circumstances  and  the  situation  must  be 
described  in  order  to  make  the  words  intelligible  to  the 
reader. 

These  conclusions,  to  which  we  seem  to  be  involuntarily 
driven  by  the  facts,  are  quite  consistent  with  the  Author's 
views,  though  they  perhaps  modify  in  some  degree  the 
general  impression  which  he  gives  of  the  lost  Common 
Source.  The  opinion  which  on  the  whole  he  is  disposed  to 
hold  is  that  this  Source  was  the  work  of  the  Apostle  Matthew, 
being  the  collection  of  Logia  which  Matthew  (as  Papias  says) 
composed.  The  Author  fully  concedes  that  Papias  under- 
stood this  collection  of  Logia  to  be  simply  the  First  Gospel 
(p.  172) ;  but  he  tends  to  the  view  that  Papias  in  this 
matter  misunderstood  his  authority,  that  Matthew  merely 
gathered  together  a  collection  of  sayings,  and  that  both  Luke 
and  the  writer  of  the  First  Gospel  made  use  of  the  collec- 
tion. 

The  question  here  rises,  how  do  the  two  extant  Gospels 
stand  related  to  the  original  Source  ?  Do  they  represent  it 
fairly,  and  which  of  them  reproduces  it  most  accurately  ? 

The  Author  shows  repeatedly,  both  as  regards  the  Markan 
portions  and  as  regards  Q,  that  while  Luke  sometimes  gave 
more  emphatic  expression  to  the  ideas  of  his  Sources,  he 
did  not  add  anything  of  consequence  to  them  on  his  own 
authority.  In  fact,  as  has  been  previously  pointed  out,^  the 
^  See  above,  pp.  47,  4,  32. 


Written  Gospel  8i 


Author's  results  from  his  detailed  examination  of  Luke, 
sentence  by  sentence  and  paragraph  by  paragraph,  stand 
in  the  most  marked  contrast  with  his  general  reflections 
upon  Luke's  character  as  a  historian.  In  both  the  Author's 
volumes  Luke  bears  the  detailed  test  even  better  than 
Matthew;  the  Author  declares  that  while  Matthew  on  the 
whole  preserves  the  actual  words  of  the  Sources  more 
exactly  than  Luke,  he  in  certain  rare  cases  adds  something 
of  his  own  to  them,  whereas  he  finds  no  case  where  Luke 
adds  to  the  Source  any  expression  betraying  the  spirit  and 
ideas  of  the  later  time  when  he  was  composing  his  Gospel. 
But  while  the  Author's  detailed  test  gives  this  result,  he 
strongly  condemns  in  general  Luke's  incapacity,  inaccuracy 
and  untrustworthiness  as  a  historian. 

As  to  the  date  when  this  collection  of  Sayings  was 
gathered  together,  the  Author  expresses  a  definite  opinion. 
He  considers  that  the  book  of  Sayings  and  Speeches  was 
composed  before  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in  A.D.  70, 
and  before  the  Gospel  of  Mark.  Otherwise  he  leaves 
the  question  of  date  an  open  one,  except  that  he  will  not 
allow  it  to  be  much  earlier  than  Mark.  This  he  infers  from 
the  fact  that  the  Gospel  of  Mark  is  wholly  independent  of 
and  unconnected  with  the  collection  of  Sayings ;  he  argues 
that  if  this  collection  had  been  long  in  circulation  before 
Mark  wrote,  it  would  be  impossible  that  Mark  should 
not  have  known  it  and  used  it  (p.    172). 

But,  while  the  Author  rightly  perceives  that  this  lost 
Source  is  older  than  Mark,  his  train  of  reasoning  seems 
inconclusive  and  unconvincing.  It  involves  one  big  assump- 
tion, viz.,  that  Mark  desired  to  make  his  work  supersede 
that  older  book.  Now,  if  we  follow  the  authority  of  Papias 
that  Mark   wrote  the   "Gospel  according   to  Peter,"  there 


82  II.    The  Oldest 


seems  not  the  slightest  reason  to  think  that  he  would  desire 
to  supersede  the  older  narrative,  or  to  intermingle  with 
Peter's  narrative  the  account  given  by  another  (whether 
Matthew  or  any  one  else),  or  that  he  would  feel  himself 
bound  to  introduce  speeches  and  sayings  from  another 
Source  into  the  narrative  as  he  gathered  it  from  Peter.  It 
is  perfectly  natural  and  probable  that  he  may  have  known 
the  old  book  of  "  Sayings  and  Speeches,"  and  yet  composed 
a  narrative  according  to  Peter,  wishing  not  to  supersede  but 
to  complete  the  older  work.  Still  we  are  not  eager  to 
maintain  that  Mark  was  acquainted  with  the  collection  of 
Sayings.  That  lies  in  the  region  of  possibilities,  not  of 
scientific  investigation. 

At  this  point  we  meet  one  of  the  Author's  prepossessions, 
which  we  cannot  sympathise  with.  He  holds  that  the  type 
of  a  Gospel — viz.^  the  principle  that  its  central  topic  and 
guiding  motive  must  be  the  death  and  resurrection  of  the 
Lord — was  fixed  by  Mark ;  "  being  required  by  the  needs 
of  a  catechetical  apologetic"  (p.  174).  We  must  differ  ^<?/(? 
caelo  from  this  assumption  and  from  the  vast  consequences 
that  follow  from  it.  The  type  of  the  Gospel  was  fixed  by 
the  facts,  and  not  by  the  accident  of  Mark's  composing  a 
Gospel.  This  type  dominated  the  whole  situation,  and 
guided  the  thought  and  word  of  the  Apostles  from  the 
moment  when  they  began  to  understand  the  facts,  i.e., 
from  the  first  Pentecost.  In  this  type  of  the  Gospel,  as  it 
quickly  formed  itself  out  of  the  actual  events,  the  death  of 
Christ  was  the  essential  and  critical  factor ;  and  on  this 
factor  the  whole  narrative  turns.  That  was  the  case  with 
the  speeches  of  Peter  and  of  Stephen  at  the  very  beginning 
— and,  as  we  take  it,  with  every  exposition  of  Christian 
truth  thereafter,  except   when  from  time  to  time  a  "  new 


Written  Gospel  Z^, 

theology  "  arose  and  lingered  for  a  short  time,  only  to  pass 
away,  often  finding  its  grave  in  the  mind  in  which  it  origi- 
nated. 

But  the  Author,  on  the  contrary,  is  obliged,  by  his  assump- 
tion that  Mark  fixed  the  type  of  the  Gospel,  to  hold  that  the 
picture  of  the  first  Church,  as  given  in  the  Acts,  is  unhistorical, 
and  that  the  speeches  of  Peter  and  Stephen  are  merely  the 
free  compositions  of  Luke,  expressing  his  own  ideas  of  what 
they  ought  to  have  said,  an  incipient  Paulinism.  So  he  is  in 
consistency  bound  to  maintain,  and  so  he  does  maintain,  even 
in  his  latest  expression  in  Lukas  der  Artzt}  And,  on  the 
same  principle,  he  holds  (p.  171)  that  the  same  cause, 
Paulinism,  exerted  a  strong  influence  in  moulding  the  form 
of  Mark's  Gospel.  In  a  word,  this  view  practically  implies  that 
Paul  originated  the  recognised  type  of  Gospel,  that  pre- 
Pauline  Christianity  was  of  an  essentially  different  character, 
and  that  in  that  earliest  period  any  so-called  germs  of  Paulin- 
ism, /.(?.,  any  stress  laid  on  the  efficacy  and  power  of  the 
Saviour's  death,  must  be  regarded  as  an  anachronism  and  an 
impossibility.  The  nature  and  origin  of  Paul's  teaching  is 
here  involved ;  and  I  find  myself  absolutely  at  variance  with 
the  Author.  To  me  it  appears  that  the  facts,  which  deter- 
mined the  type  of  the  Gospel,  imposed  it  on  the  minds  of  the 
Apostles,  generally,  and  that  Luke's  report  of  those  early 
speeches  is  historical  and  trustworthy  ;  and  I  am  utterly 
sceptical  as  to  the  possibility  that  Mark,  or  any  other  man, 
cpuld  have  fixed  immutably  and  permanently  (as  the  Author 
maintains,  p.  174)  the  type  of  all  subsequent  Gospels. 

But,  it  will  be  objected,  here  in  Q  is  a  Gospel  which  is 
utterly  different  from  the  established  type,  which  never 
mentions  the  death  of  Christ  or  bases  the  efficacy  of  Christ's 
^  He  often  tacitly  assumes'  it.    See  above,  p.  22. 


84  11.    The  Oldest 


teaching  on  His  death — a  Gospel  which  the  Author,  mainly 
on  the  ground  of  this  character,  holds  to  be  earlier  than 
Mark's  Gospel,  but  not  very  much  earlier. 

This  is  an  important  argument,  which  needs  and  will 
reward  careful  consideration.  It  involves  two  points,  (i) 
Is  it  true  that,  as  the  Author  maintains,  the  lost  Common 
Source  took  no  notice  of  the  death  of  Christ  ?  (2)  If  that 
was  the  case,  when  was  that  Common  Source  written  ? 

It  is,  of  course,  correct  procedure  on  the  Author's  part 
to  restrict  the  scope  of  Q  in  the  first  instance  to  the  parts 
which  can  be  restored  with  approximate  certainty  from 
the  agreement  of  Matthew  and  Luke,  and  to  set  aside 
rigorously  all  that  does  not  rest  on  this  assured  basis — 
though  even  thus  there  are  some  places  where,  as  he  says, 
it  is  impossible  entirely  to  avoid  conjectural  work.  But 
in  deducing  from  this  restoration  the  character  of  the  lost 
Source,  one  must  remember  that  this  restored  Q  is  incom- 
plete, and  one  must  draw  no  inferences  of  a  purely  negative 
character,  i.e.,  one  must  never  infer  that  there  was  in  the  lost 
Source  no  mention  of  any  particular  event  or  group  of  events 
merely  on  the  negative  evidence  that  in  the  restored  Q  no 
mention  occurs  of  the  event  or  group  of  events.  To  justify 
such  an  inference  it  is  necessary  to  show  that  Q  is  positively 
inconsistent  with  the  supposition  that  the  event  or  group  of 
events  was  known  to  the  writer  of  the  lost  Source. 

Accordingly,  to  find  that  there  is  in  Q  (as  determined  by 
the  agreement  of  Matthew  and  Luke)  no  mention  of  Christ's 
death,  does  not  afford  sufficient  proof  that  His  death  was 
not  mentioned  in  the  lost  Common  Source.  It  would,  as  far 
as  this  reason  goes,  be  quite  possible  that  this  Source  (which 
on  the  narrative  side  is  scanty  and  confessedly  poorer  than 
Mark)  was   in  the  conclusion  so  distinctly  inferior  to  Mark 


Written  Gospel  85 


that  the  latter  (combined  to  some  extent  with  other  Sources) 
was  preferred  by  both  Matthew  and  Luke  ;  and  it  might 
even  be  possible  to  speculate  whether  this  Source  was  not 
used  by  one  of  the  two  alone  in  some  parts. 

But  there  is  stronger  ground  for  the  Author's  view :  the 
teaching  of  Q  is  inconsistent  with  the  idea  that  the  writer 
of  the  lost  Source  regarded  the  death  of  Jesus  as  the  funda- 
mental fact  in  the  Gospel.  One  acquires  the  impression 
throughout  that  Jesus  was  to  him  the  great  Teacher,  not 
that  He  was  the  Redeemer  by  His  death :  Jesus  was  to 
him  the  Son  of  God,  the  King  who  reveals  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven.  In  the  Teaching  of  Jesus,  the  Kingdom  of 
God  stood  out  prominently,  and  its  nature,  with  the  con- 
ditions of  entering  it,  were  emphatically  stated  :  the  sons  of 
the  Kingdom,  who  had  the  right  of  birth,  i.e.,  the  Jews, 
were  to  be  rejected,  and  the  Gentiles  from  all  the  world  were 
to  find  a  home  with  Abraham  and  Isaac  in  the  Kingdom  of 
God  (sections  42,  13,  30);  it  was  not  a  Kingdom  of  this 
world,  it  was  a  process  of  development  and  growth  in  the 
mind  of  the  individual  (section  40) :  hence,  to  speak  against 
the  Holy  Spirit  (which  works  this  process  in  the  mind  of 
man)  is  the  fatal  and  unpardonable  sin  (section  345,  29) :  in 
this  it  is  already  implied,  as  is  said  in  Luke  xvii.  21,  that 
"the  Kingdom  of  God  is  within  you".  The  way  of  salva- 
tion, ie.y  the  Kingdom  of  God,  does  not  lie  outside  of,  or 
apart  from,  common  life,  but  in  the  ordinary  life  of  man  (z>., 
it  is  the  spirit  in  which  that  life  is  lived)  ;  and  every  man 
has  the  opportunity  of  being  justified  by  the  spirit  of  wisdom 
(section  15,  12).  The  revelation  by  the  Son  is  the  only  and 
necessary  way  by  which  man  can  attain  to  the  knowledge  of 
God  (section  25) ;  this  way  of  salvation  is  a  difficult  path 
with  a  single  narrow  entrance  (section  41);  it  was  unknown 


86  II.    The  Oldest 


to  many  prophets,  though  now  shown  publicly  to  those  who 
saw  and  heard  Him  (section  26)  ;  it  is  hidden  from  the  wise 
and  the  educated,  but  revealed  to  infants  (section  25);  the 
Kingdom  of  God  has  come  near  those  cities  whither  the 
true  teachers  and  Apo^jdes  go  (section  22,  16);  there  is  need 
for  many  workers  in  this  harvesting  of  the  world  (section  18). 

In  this  Teaching  there  lies  implicit  the  Gospel  of  Christ, 
but  the  foundation  on  which  alone  (according  to  the  univer- 
sal Christian  Gospel  from  Peter  and  Stephen  onwards)  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  can  be  built  up,  is  wanting,  for  there 
is  no  allusion  to  the  death  of  Christ,  which  gives  the  needed 
driving  force  and  the  power.  The  central  and  determining 
factor  which  makes  the  Christian  religion  is  wanting,  and 
the  want  of  it  was  not  felt  by  the  writer.  Jesus  meant  to 
him  something  markedly  different  from  what  He  is  in  all 
the  Gospels  and  in  the  whole  New  Testament  outside  of  Q. 

The  question  then  is,  When  could  such  Teaching  as  this 
be  written  down  in  a  book  ?  The  Author  replies  that  it  was 
written  down  shortly  before  Mark's  Gospel,  but  after  Peter 
and  Stephen  and  Paul  had  been  preaching  the  Gospel  of 
the  death  of  Christ.  The  type  of  the  Christian  Gospel  had 
not  then  been  fixed  by  Mark ;  and,  in  the  Author's  view, 
apparently,  the  Gospel  might  be  anything  that  any  writer 
pleased  until  Mark  had  shown  what  a  Gospel  ought  to  be, 
after  which  no  writer  could  do  anything  except  follow  the 
type  as  fixed  once  for  all  by  Mark.  He  apparently  believes 
that  the  other  Twelve  Apostles  preached  anything  they 
found  good  in  the  way  of  teaching  from  the  beginning  down 
till  Mark's  publication ;  no  one  perceived  what  was  the 
meaning  and  power  of  Christ's  death  until  Mark's  Gospel, 
in  accordance  with  apologetic  needs,  fixed  the  type. 

The   Author's   theory   mistakes    literature   for   life,   and 


Written  Gospel  87 


regards  the  chance  of  Mark's  publication  as  determining 
the  course  of  subsequent  Christianity.  He  ignores  the  facts 
(as  we  hold)  that  Mark  was  only  an  accidental  agent,  who 
wrote  what  the  development  of  Christian  teaching  forced 
him  to  write ;  that  it  was  not  apologetic  needs,  but  the  force 
of  inner  life  and  growth,  which  gave  form  to  the  Gospel ; 
and  that  the  Gospel  existed  before  Mark  and  independent 
of  Mark.  He  even  thinks  that  Mark,  if  he  had  known  Q, 
would  have  given  a  different  character  to  his  own  Gospel. 

It  is  impossible  that  any  of  the  disciples  could  about  thirty 
years  after  the  Crucifixion  picture  Jesus  simply  as  the  great 
living  Teacher,  or  could  set  forth  the  way  of  salvation  as 
being  through  the  true  knowledge  which  is  revealed  only  by 
the  Son  of  God,  and  yet  never  in  any  way  allude  to  His 
death  as  being  an  essential  factor  in  the  process  of  salvation. 
The  disciples  realised  immediately  after  the  Crucifixion 
that  they  had  never  rightly  understood  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
in  His  lifetime,  because  they  had  missed  that  cardinal  fact  of 
His  death.  Here  we  have  an  account  which  sets  before  us 
Jesus  as  the  Saviour  without  alluding  to  the  cardinal  fact. 
The  writer  did  not  know  that  fact,  which  so  radically 
changed  the  minds  of  all.  Had  he  known  it,  he  could  not 
have  been  silent  about  it. 

The  Author  lends  plausibility  to  his  view  by  denying  all 
credibility  to  those  parts  of  the  Gospels  and  the  Acts  which 
throw  light  on  the  feelings  and  thoughts  of  the  disciples 
during  the  period  between  the  Resurrection  and  the  writing 
of  Mark's  Gospel.  In  his  view  the  course  of  early  Christian 
history  was  quite  different  from  what  it  is  described  to  us ; 
a  false  Pauline-Markan  colour  has  been  painted  over  it  all, 
and  the  disciples  understood  everything  quite  differently 
until  Paul  through  Mark  taught  them  otherwise. 


88  II.    The  Oldest 


This  is  the  only  way  to  give  a  reasonable  character  to  the 
Author's  dating  of  Q.  Only  those  who  are  prepared  to  go 
so  far  can  accept  his  view.  But  it  seems  inconsistent  and 
incredible  that  the  period  of  Christ's  life  and  the  post- 
Markan  period  should  have  been  pictured  to  us  in  such 
a  fairly  trustworthy  form  as  the  Author  allows,  while 
the  intervening  thirty  or  forty  years  is  so  totally  misrepre- 
sented. This  is  not  a  reasonable  or  natural  view ;  and  no 
attempt  is  made  to  put  it  on  a  reasonable  basis.  The  as- 
sumption is  made  that  the  first  half  of  the  second  book  of 
Luke's  history  is  utterly  untrustworthy ;  and  an  unattested 
and  unsupported  historical  sketch  is  founded  on  the  assump- 
tion. Here  and  everywhere  in  the  study  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament we  see  the  evil  consequences  of  depreciating  the 
trustworthiness  of  Luke. 

One  other  explanation  can  be  suggested  which  would  make 
the  Author's  date  for  Q  conceivable ;  and  that  is  that  the 
writer  of  the  lost  Source  in  the  first  part  of  his  work  described 
the  mind  and  belief  of  the  disciples  as  they  were  while  Christ 
was  still  living,  and  then  in  the  last  part  described  the  change 
that  was  produced  in  them  after  the  death  of  Christ  had  re- 
vealed to  them  the  real  truth.  But  such  an  artificial  explana- 
tion cannot  for  a  moment  be  entertained.  The  Author  does 
not  even  think  it  worthy  of  notice,  but  tacitly  rejects  it  and 
insists  on  the  simplicity  of  the  lost  Source.  This  explanation 
is  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  possibilities  of  the  situation. 
It  supposes  a  straining  after  dramatic  effect  which  cannot  be 
reconciled  either  with  the  character  of  early  Christianity  or 
with  the  habits  and  established  canons  of  ancient  literature. 

We  conclude,  then,  that  the  date  assigned  by  the  Author 
is  impossible  in  itself  and  inconsistent  with  his  own  views. 
The  lost  Source  cannot  be  placed  either  between  Mark  and 


Written  Gospel  89 


Luke,  or  a  little  before  Mark.  It  cannot  be  placed  later 
than  the  time  when  the  disciples  began,  at  the  first  Pente- 
cost, to  understand  the  true  nature  of  the  Gospel,  and 
Peter  began  to  declare  it  publicly,  establishing  it  on  the  firm 
foundation  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ's  death. 

A  date  between  the  death  of  Christ  and  the  first  Pente- 
cost is  equally  impossible;  and  is  not  likely  even  to  be 
suggested  by  any  one.  In  that  period  of  gloom  and  despair, 
who  would  sit  down  to  compose  a  Gospel  in  the  tone  of 

Q? 

There  is  only  one  possibility.  The  lost  Common  Source 
of  Luke  and  Matthew  (to  which,  as  the  Author  says,  Luke 
attached  even  higher  value  than  he  did  to  Mark)  was 
written  while  Christ  was  still  living.  It  gives  us  the  view 
which  one  of  His  disciples  entertained  of  Him  and  His 
teaching  during  His  lifetime,  and  may  be  regarded  as 
authoritative  for  the  view  of  the  disciples  generally.  This 
extremely  early  date  was  what  gave  the  lost  Source  the 
high  value  that  it  had  in  the  estimation  of  Matthew  and 
Luke,  and  yet  justified  the  freedom  with  which  they  handled 
it  and  modified  it  by  addition  and  explanation  (for  the 
Author's  comparison  of  the  passages  as  they  appear  in 
Luke  and  Matthew  shows  that  the  lost  Common  Source 
was  very  freely  treated  by  them).  On  the  one  hand,  it 
was  a  document  practically  contemporary  with  the  facts, 
and  it  registered  the  impression  made  on  eye-witnesses  by 
the  words  and  acts  of  Christ.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was 
written  before  those  words  and  acts  had  begun  to  be  pro- 
perly understood  by  even  the  most  intelligent  eye-witnesses. 
So,  for  example,  John  says  (ii.  22)  that  "when  He  was 
risen  from  the  dead.  His  disciples  remembered  that  He 
had  said  this   unto    them,"  and   they  then    comprehended 


90  II.    The  Oldest 


the  reference  to  His  death  which  at  the  time  they  had  not 
understood. 

The  same  tone  is  observable  frequently  in  the  Synoptic 
Gospels ;  so,  for  example,  in  Matthew  xvi.  2 1  f, :  "  From 
that  time  began  Jesus  to  show  unto  His  disciples  how  that 
He  must  .  .  .  suffer  many  things  .  .  .  and  be  killed  and 
the  third  day  be  raised  up.  And  Peter  .  .  .  began  to 
rebuke  Him,  saying,  Be  it  far  from  Thee,  Lord ;  this  shall 
never  be  unto  Thee.  But  He  turned  and  said  unto  Peter, 
Get  thee  behind  Me,  Satan;  thou  art  a  stumbling-block 
unto  Me :  for  thou  mindest  not  the  things  of  God,  but  tlie 
things  of  men." 

This  is  found  also  in  Mark ;  but  Luke  omitted  the  re- 
ference to  Peter,  apparently  disliking  the  harshness  of  the 
language. 

Then  there  immediately  follows  in  Matthew  a  passage 
strongly  reminiscent  of  O  as  restored  by  the  Author  :  com- 
pare xvi.  24  with  Q  section  46,  and  xvi.  25  with  Q  section 
57.^  In  fact,  xvi.  24,  25,  are  almost  a  repetition  of  x.  38, 
39,  but  the  former  belongs  to  the  Markan  portion  of  Luke 
and  Matthew,  the  latter  belongs  to  Q. 

Luke  ix.  44  f. :  "  While  all  were  marvelling  at  all  the 
things  which  He  did,  He  said  unto  His  disciples.  Let  these 
words  sink  into  your  ears ;  for  the  Son  of  Man  shall  be 
delivered  up  into  the  hands  of  men.  But  they  understood 
not  this  saying,  and  it  was  concealed  from  them,  that  they 
should  not  perceive  it:  and  they  were  afraid  to  ask  Him 
about  this  saying."  This  also  is  common  to  Mark  ix.  31, 
32,  and  Matthew  xvii.  23,  but  the  latter  gives  only  the  words 
of  Jesus,  without  remarking  on  the  ignorance  of  the  disciples. 

1 Q  46  is  Matthew  x.  38,  Luke  xiv.  27 ;  Q  57  is  Matthew  x.  39,  Luke  xvii. 
33- 


Written  Gospel  91 


Luke  ix.  54-56  mentions  the  rebuke  to  James  and  John 
on  the  way  towards  Jerusalem  for  their  suggestion,  which 
was  so  incongruous  with  the  spirit  of  Christ  and  the  occasion. 
This  is  Lukan  only. 

Luke  xviii.  31-34:  "He  took  unto  Him  the  twelve  and 
said  unto  them,  Behold  we  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  and  all  the 
things  that  are  written  by  the  prophets  shall  be  accom- 
plished unto  the  Son  of  Man.  For  He  shall  be  delivered 
up  .  .  .  and  the  third  day  He  shall  rise  again.  And  they 
understood  none  of  these  things ;  and  this  saying  was  hid 
from  them,  and  they  perceived  not  the  things  that  were 
said."  Matthew  xx.  17-19  and  Mark  x.  32-34  mention 
that  Jesus  revealed  the  coming  facts  to  the  twelve  disciples, 
but  do  not  remark  on  their  failure  to  understand. 

The  Author,  if  we  do  not  misunderstand  him,  takes  a 
different  view  of  these  and  similar  passages :  he  regards 
them  apparently  as  being  of  distinctly  later  origin,  barely 
of  apostolic  period,  but  rather  representing  the  reflections 
and  moralising  of  a  later  generation  with  regard  to  the 
simpler  ideas  entertained  by  ruder  minds  in  an  earlier 
time,  before  the  later  views  about  the  death  of  Christ 
and  its  meaning  had  established  themselves :  see  especially 
below,  pp.  240-2. 

We  would  not  affirm  that  the  writers  of  the  canonical 
Gospels  never  added  such  reflections ;  but  that  tone  and 
attitude  of  mind  seems  to  us  to  have  originated  in  the 
period  immediately  following  the  Crucifixion,  and  to  be  the 
inevitable  accompaniment  or  expression  of  the  gradual 
realisation  by  the  disciples  of  their  new  knowledge  that  the 
death  of  Christ  was  a  necessary  and  fundamental  part  of 
His  Gospel.  In  our  view,  the  utmost  that  can  be  attri- 
buted to  any  of  the  evangelists  is  that  he  gave  more  sharp 


92  II.    The  Oldest 


and  emphatic  form  to  those  reflections;  we  cannot  allow 
that  he  created  them. 

There  seems  no  other  supposition  but  this  which  would 
satisfactorily  explain  the  character  o{  Q.  On  this  view 
everything  in  it  becomes  clear.  According  to  this  view 
Jesus  stood  forth  in  His  lifetime  as  the  great  Teacher, 
because  in  that  way  alone  He  had  as  yet  become  known 
even  to  the  most  faithful  and  devoted  of  His  followers. 
The  way  of  salvation  was  the  way  of  right  wisdom  :  know- 
ledge was  what  Jesus  revealed,  viz.,  the  knowledge  of  God 
the  Father.  But  Jesus  alone  could  impart  this  knowledge. 
As  He  said,  "  I  thank  Thee,  O  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and 
earth,  that  Thou  didst  hide  these  things  from  the  wise  and 
understanding,  and  didst  reveal  them  unto  babes.  .  .  . 
All  things  have  been  delivered  unto  Me  of  My  Father  ;  and 
no  one  knoweth  the  Father  save  the  Son  and  he  to  whom- 
soever the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  Him."  Such  is  the  original 
form  (Q),  which  the  Author  specifies  as  lying  behind 
Matthew  xi.  25-27  and  Luke  x.  21-22.  He  regards  the 
omitted  part  of  the  last  sentence  as  an  interpolation  (see 
especially  pp.  204-6). 

The  two  sentences  which  immediately  follow  this  passage 
in  Matthew  xi.  28-30  are  regarded  by  the  Author  as  prob- 
ably truly  words  of  Jesus,  taken,  however,  not  from  Q  but 
rather  from  some  other  trustworthy  Source  and  placed 
wrongly  in  this  situation  by  Matthew.  The  passage  is  the 
familiar  and  frequently  quoted  one :  "  Come  unto  Me,  all  ye 
that  labour  and  are  heavily  laden,  and  I  will  ^\sq  you  rest 
Take  My  yoke  upon  you  and  learn  of  Me ;  for  I  am  meek 
and  lowly  in  heart;  and  ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls. 
For  My  yoke  is  easy,  and  My  burden  is  light."  The  Author 
sees  and  explains  admirably  the  close  relationship  of  thought 


Written  Gospel  93 


and  meaning  between  these  two  passages.  The  knowledge 
of  God  in  the  one  case  is  the  intellectual  aspect  of  that  which 
in  the  other  case  is  called  in  its  moral  aspect  the  yoke  or 
burden  of  duty;  and  Jesus  describes  Himself  as  at  once  the 
conveyer  of  the  instruction  and  the  imposer  of  the  yoke, 
"  take  My  yoke  upon  you  and  learn  of  Me  ".  This  is  merely 
an  enforcement  in  the  imperative  mood  of  the  truth  stated 
as  a  fact  in  the  preceding  verses.  Thus  the  whole  passage 
runs  continuously  in  perfect  sequence. 

But  the  failure  in  Luke  of  any  parallel  to  Matthew  xi. 
28-30  constitutes  an  argument  so  serious  as  to  convince  the 
Author  that  Luke  did  not  find  those  last  three  verses  in  the 
lost  Common  Source,  for  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  how 
he  should  have  omitted  an  expression  which  is  so  harmonious 
with  the  tone  and  spirit  of  his  Gospel.  It  is,  of  course, 
always  an  uncertain  argument  to  found  any  inference  on 
the  fact  that  some  saying  or  event  was  omitted  by  Luke  out 
of  the  vast  number  from  which  he  had  to  select :  he  certainly 
omitted  much  that  we  should  have  been  glad  to  have.  But 
selection  was  necessary,  and  no  two  persons  will  select  in 
exactly  the  same  way:  one  will  mourn  the  omission  of 
something  which  the  other  suffered  to  be  crowded  out.  Yet 
there  is  probably  no  other  case  where  a  deliberate  omission 
by  Luke  seems  so  strange  as  this;  and  hence  many  will 
agree  with  the  Author  that  Matthew  took  these  three  verses 
from  some  other  Source  and  placed  them  here  on  account 
of  their  intrinsic  suitability. 

We  cannot,  however,  agree  with  him  when  he  seeks  to 
strengthen  this  argument  by  the  consideration  that  the 
verses  common  to  Luke  and  Matthew  are  a  statement  in 
the  indicative,  while  the  addition  peculiar  to  Matthew  is 
an  invitation  in  the  imperative,  and  that  there  is  too  much 


•94  II-    The  Oldest 


change  between  the  situation  in  the  two  parts.  This  reason- 
ing is  founded  on  the  assumption,  which  the  Author  makes 
throughout,  that  what  is  early  in  the  Gospels  is  necessarily 
simpler  and  more  single  in  tone  than  what  is  later.  Jesus 
was  a  complex  character,  and  His  Teaching  had  many  sides ; 
and  we  ought  to  find  traces  of  this  complexity  in  the  very 
earliest  faithful  presentation  of  Him.  But  this  is  a  point 
which  is  too  important  for  us  to  enter  upon  at  present.  At 
present  I  would  only  point  out  the  really  close  philosophic 
connection  of  the  two  parts  in  Matthew.  The  first  part,  xi. 
25-27  (Luke  X.  21-22),  is  the  statement  that  right: knowledge 
of  the  Divine  nature  can  be  acquired  by  man  only  through 
direct  revelation  from  Jesus.  The  second  part  invites  man 
to  come  to  Jesus  and  acquire  this  knowledge,  declares  His 
readiness  to  reveal  the  knowledge,  mentions  that  man  in 
coming  must  co-operate  by  "  taking  on  him  the  yoke  of 
Jesus,"  and  adds  that  the  yoke  is  easy.  In  the  two  parts  of 
Matthew's  saying  we  have  in  embryo  the  whole  philosophy 
•of  history  and  the  history  of  religious  development  as  Paul 
understood  it.^ 

The  Author  rightly  finds  a  corroboration  of  his  opinion 
that  Matthew  xi.  28-30  is  truly  a  word  of  Jesus  in  2  Corin- 
thians X.  I  :  "I  entreat  you  by  the  meekness  and  gentleness 
of  Christ,  I  who  in  your  presence  am  lowly  among  you "? 
We  should  also  be  disposed  to  think  that  the  expressions 
used  in  Acts  xv.  lo-ii,  28,  rose  to  the  mind  of  Peter  and  the 
Apostles  from  recollection  of  the  Saying  contained  in  this 

^Cities  of  St.  Paul,  pp.  10-15. 

"In  the  writer's  Cities  0/ St.  Paul,  p.  38  f.,  it  is  argued  from  this  passage, 
together  with  Ephesians  iv.  i,  2,  and  Colossians  iii.  12  (juxtaposition  of 
■jipaiis  and  raTrfii'6s,  or  irpavrr^s  and  Taireivo<ppo(Tvvr\),  that  Paul  knew  this  Saying 
^whether  from  the  Collection  of  Sayings  or  from  oral  information). 


Written  Gospel  95 


passage  of  Matthew.^  Peter  in  his  speech  to  the  Council 
said,  "  Why  tempt  ye  God  that  ye  should  put  a  yoke  upon 
the  neck  of  the  disciples,  which  neither  we  nor  our  fathers 
were  able  to  bear  ?  But  we  believe  that  we  should  be  saved 
through  the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  in  like  manner  as  they." 
And  the  Decree  of  the  Council  ordained,  "  it  seemed  good 
...  to  lay  upon  you  no  greater  burden  than  these  necessary 
things".  Here  the  yoke  and  burden  of  the  Jewish  Law  is 
contrasted  with  the  saving  grace  of  Jesus ;  and  the  Author 
points  out  that  the  yoke  and  burden  which  is  meant  in  the 
passage  of  Q  just  quoted  is  that  which  the  Pharisees  imposed.^ 
That  the  Author  is  right  becomes  evident  where  this  passage 
is  combined  with  Matthew  xxiii.  4  (identical  in  force  with 
Luke  xi.  46),  which  is  part  of  Q  section  33,  "the  Pharisees 
bind  heavy  burdens  .  .  .  and  lay  them  on  men's  shoulders  ". 
The  heavy  burden  was  the  teaching  of  the  Pharisees  and  of 
the  Law ;  but  the  Teaching  of  Jesus  imposed  a  light  burden 
and  an  easy  yoke. 

But  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  go  searching  with  the  Author 
for  arguments  and  external  proofs  that  the  words  of  Matthew 
xi.  28-30  were  in  real  truth  spoken  by  Jesus,  and  not  in- 
vented by  a  later  fancy.  The  practically  universal  consent 
of  all  subsequent  thought  has  recognised  those  verses  as 
among  the  most  characteristic,  the  most  exquisite,  and  the 
most  perfectly  adapted  to  the  needs  of  mankind,  that  have 
been  preserved  to  us  in  the  Gospels,  No  proof  can  be  so 
strong  as  that  consent,  Securus  iudicat  crbis  terrarum.  There 
was  no  second  Christ  to  speak  those  words, 

^  Whether  from  their  own  recollection  of  the  words  which  they  had  heard 
or  from  their  knowledge  of  the  book  of  the  Sayings,  or  from  both. 

''■  The  Author  does  not  mention  this  analogy ;  and  on  his  view  of  the  late 
date  and  spurious  character  of  the  Decree,  he  would  explain  it  in  a  very  dif- 
ferent way. 


96  II.   The  Oldest 


Nor  need  we  restrict  their  intention  so  narrowly  as  the 
Author  seems  to  do.  They  are  far  wider  in  application 
than  he  allows — as  wide  as  the  burden  of  every  trial  and 
every  sorrow  that  men  know ;  but  they  certainly  include, 
as  he  says,  the  contrast  between  the  burden  of  Pharisaic  law 
and  the  freedom  of  Christ's  teaching ;  they  anticipate  the 
controversy  between  Paul  and  the  Judaising  party ;  and 
they  lead  up  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  And  what 
a  difference  in  temper  and  spirit  is  there  between  the 
Saying  of  Jesus  and  the  Epistle  of  Paul,  great  as  the 
latter  is;  all  the  difference  between  the  Divine  and  the 
human. 

It  is  clearly  apparent  that  Luke  treated  the  text  of  Q  with 
considerable  freedom,  and  that  the  agreement  of  Matthew 
and  Luke  is  in  many  places  confined  to  small  sayings,  which 
might  possibly  have  come  to  them  from  independent  sources. 
In  this  respect  there  is  a  decided  contrast  with  the  triple 
agreement  (of  Matthew  and  Luke  with  Mark),  where  the 
likeness  generally  extends  over  considerable  passages,  some- 
times over  long  continuous  stretches  of  narrative.  This 
difference  has  led  some  scholars  ^  to  doubt  the  existence  of 
any  real  single  written  authority  Q  behind  this  double  agree- 
ment (of  Matthew  and  Luke,  independent  of  Mark).  They 
would  rather  incline  either  to  a  verdict  of  "  Not  Proven,"  or 
to  a  definite  opinion  that  the  double  agreement  rests  on 
strong  general  likeness  in  a  widespread  oral  tradition  or  in 
several  different  documents. 

The  Author's  answer  to  this  is  given  in  one  of  the  most 
striking  passages  in  the  whole  work,  a  passage  conceived  in 
a  singularly  lofty  spirit  of  sympathetic  insight  and  of  the 

» Notably  my  friend,  Rev.  Willoughby  C  Allen,  in  his  edition  of  the  first 
Gospel. 


Written  Gospel  97 


highest  kind  of  "  Higher  Criticism,"  on  p.  162  fif.  (though  in 
it  there  are  passages  which  do  not  convince  me) :  — 

"  The  proof  that  Q  is  essentially  a  homogeneous  and  an 
ancient  source  is  ultimately  based  upon  the  nature  of  its 
description  of  the  personality  of  our  Lord."^  We  see  that 
there  was  an  ancient  written  Common  Source,  because  Q 
presents  to  us  so  remarkable,  individual  and  unique  a  con- 
ception of  Jesus.  This  conception  is  of  inestimable  value. 
Throughout  all  subsequent  time  the  value  has  been  acknow- 
ledged in  every  attempt  made  to  sum  up  His  personality. 
"  The  portrait  of  Jesus  as  given  in  the  sayings  of  Q  has  re- 
mained in  the  foreground."  ^ 

The  reason  why  Luke  treats  with  greater  freedom  that 
old  Common  Source  is  complex.  Two  causes  can  be 
specified  forthwith;  and  there  probably  are  more.  In  the 
first  place,  a  book  in  which  the  narrative  was  slight  and  the 
writer's  interest  was  directed  almost  entirely  to  recording 
the  sayings  and  teaching  of  his  hero  could  not  be  adapted 
to  a  narrative  form  without  some  freedom.  Secondly,  in 
the  teaching  of  Christ  the  same  subjects  and  topics  were, 
beyond  all  doubt,  insisted  on  repeatedly.  John  gives  in 
different  situations  a  fuller  discussion  of  topics  which  are 
briefly  mentioned  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  This  is  a  sub- 
ject which  would  require  and  reward  full  treatment. 

The  individualised  conception  of  the  Saviour's  personality, 
which  the  Author  rightly  emphasises  so  strongly,  proves  also 
that  it  is  impossible  to  regard  Q  or  the  original  Common 
Source  as  a  practical  catechetic  manual,  drawn  up  about  A.D. 
60-70  for  the  use  of  teachers  and  pupils  in  the  Christian  doc- 

^  The  translation  is  Mr.  Wilkinson's,  which  I  purposely  adopt,  partly  to 
exemplify  its  excellence,  partly  to  avoid  any  risk  of  colouring  the  Author's 
words  to  suit  my  point. 

7 


98  II.    The  Oldest 


trine — which  is  the  view  taken  by  esteemed  friends,  especi- 
ally by  Dr.  Sanday,  In  such  a  manual  or  handbook  how 
can  we  expect  to  find  a  human  being,  portrayed  in  such 
markedly  original  traits,  so  unlike  the  conception  that  was 
current  in  all  other  early  Christian  documents  ?  The  com- 
pilation of  a  catechetical  manual  at  any  period  must  not  be 
assumed  without  definite  proof  that  the  character  of  that 
period  is  clearly  marked  in  the  compilation.  Now  the 
Author  rightly  emphasises  repeatedly  as  characteristic  of  Q 
that  it  has  no  Christological-apologetic  interest,  that  it  was 
not  compiled  in  the  interest  of  Christological  apologetics,  and 
that  it  follows  no  apologetic-Christological  aims.^  In  the 
assumed  period,  A.D.  60-70,  when  Christianity  was  a  mission- 
ary religion,  already  for  a  long  time  subject  to  attack  and 
supported  by  defensive  statements  and  teaching,  such  a 
document  as  this  is  wholly  out  of  place  and  inconceivable. 
We  have  in  it  the  contemporary  notes  of  a  person  in  im- 
mediate personal  contact  with  Jesus,  fascinated  by  His  per- 
sonality as  a  living  man  and  as  a  great  Teacher  and  Prophet, 
not  thinking  of  His  death  and  of  what  was  to  ensue  thereon. 
When  we  desire  to  realise  the  character  of  the  living  man 
Jesus,  we  must  go  to  contemporary  record.  It  would  be 
vain  to  seek  for  Him  in  the  grave  of  a  catechetical  manual. 

In  conclusion,  it  is  perhaps  right  to  refer  to  an  argument 
which  will  weigh  with  many  minds  against  the  date  which 
we  assign  for  the  composition  of  the  lost  Common  Source 
of  Luke  and  Matthew.  It  is  a  widespread  assumption  that 
the  earliest  Christians  did  not  commit  to  writing  any  record 
of  the  life  or  the  words  of  the  Saviour  ;  and  that  it  was  only 
at  a  later  date,  after  at  least  the  first  Epistles  of  Paul  had 
been  written,  and  when  the  disciples  had  ceased  to  expect 
1  See  pp.  163  and  167. 


Written  Gospel  99 


the  immediate  Coming  of  the  Lord  and  the  end  of  the  world, 
that  they  began  to  think  of  composing  accounts  of  the  events 
and  teaching  in  which  their  faith  originated.  If  you  ask  for 
reasons  to  support  this  assumption,  there  are  none  that  seem 
to  have  even  the  slightest  value.  It  is  a  pure  prepossession, 
which  has  lasted  from  the  time  when  everybody  believed  that 
the  art  of  writing  was  a  late  invention  ;  that  the  custom  of 
writing  spread  gradually  and  slowly,  and  was  in  ancient  times 
(as  in  mediaeval)  rare  and  unusual ;  and  that  the  composition 
of  every  document  ought  always  to  be  assigned  on  principle 
to  the  latest  possible  date.  This  is  a  prejudice  which  has 
been  decisively  disproved  by  recent  discovery.  The  art  of 
writing  is  very  old.  The  knowledge  of  writing  was  far  more 
generally  diffused  in  the  east  Mediterranean  lands  in  ancient 
times  than  it  was  in  mediaeval  Europe ;  and  the  strong  pre- 
sumption is  that  every  important  event  in  the  early  Imperial 
period  was  described  in  informal  or  even  formal  documents, 
often  by  several  persons,  at  the  time  that  it  occurred. 

Protestantism  first  supplied  the  driving  force  to  popularise 
reading  and  writing  among  the  mass  of  the  people  in  modern 
times,  and  from  the  Protestant  countries  the  custom  spread  ; 
but  still  it  is  only  in  a  few  countries  that  the  familiar  use 
of  writing  in  everyday  life  is  so  widely  diffused  as  it  was  in 
the  most  civilised  regions  of  the  Mediterranean  world  about 
the  time  of  Christ.  The  whole  burden  of  proof  lies  with 
those  who  maintain  that  the  earliest  Christians  committed 
no  record  to  writing,  for  that  view  is  quite  out  of  harmony 
with  the  facts  and  tone  of  society  in  that  period  and 
region.^ 

'  The  reasons  for  this  opinion  are  stated  more  fully  in  the  first  chapter  of 
the  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  though  even  there  they  are  merely  given 
in  outline. 


lOO  II.    The  Oldest 


There  is  one  word  which  the  Author  sometimes  uses  in  a 
way  which  does  not  convince  me — the  word  "  legend  ". 
Wherever  it  occurs  it  is  a  sign  of  the  same  old  evil  which 
has  long  been  blocking  progress — the  hard,  unsympathetic, 
self-satisfied,  unresponsive  and  contemptuous  attitude  in 
cases  where  the  East  perplexes  the  West,  where  the  first 
century  eludes  the  comprehension  of  the  nineteenth.  In  all 
such  cases  the  nineteenth  century  way  of  thought,  its  refuge 
from  the  duty  of  learning  to  understand  what  lay  outside  of 
it  and  beyond  its  narrow  view,  was  to  condemn  as  "  legend  " 
what  it  could  not  understand.  The  word  "legend"  was 
used  in  an  unintelligent  and  irrational  way.  The  typical 
nineteenth  century  scholar  did  not  begin  by  properly  con- 
ceiving what  is  the  nature  of  "  legend  ".  He  started  with  a 
certain  fixed  standard  of  instinctive  and  unreasoning  dislike: 
whatever  he  could  not  comprehend,  he  condemned  as 
"legend".  The  honest  and  scientific  method  in  such  cases 
would  have  been  to  say  simply,  "  this  I  do  not  understand  "  ; 
it  would  have  been  human  and  pardonable  to  add,  "  since  I 
do  not  understand  it,  I  am  suspicious  of  it ".  That  the  four 
Gospels,  of  which  even  the  earliest  is  long  posterior  to  the 
events  it  records  and  was  not  written  by  an  eye-witness,  are 
free  from  "  legend  "  I  personally  do  not  maintain  ;  but  that 
much  which  has  been  called  legend  is  of  an  altogether 
different  character  and  has  nothing  about  it  of  the  nature 
of  legend,  1  feel  firmly  convinced.  That  the  domain  ascribed 
to  "  legend "  in  the  Gospels  by  modern  scholars  has  been 
much  diminished  in  recent  years  is  patent  to  all.  It  is  much 
to  be  desired  that  those  who  use  the  term  "legend"  in  this 
connection  should  begin  by  understanding  clearly  what 
legend  is.  Even  admitting  that  some  statement  or  narrative 
in  a  Gospel  is  not  trustworthy,  it  does  not  follow  that  this 


Written  Gospel  lOi 


statement  is  legend  :  it  may  have  originated  in  some  other 
way.  The  Author  is  not  free  even  now  from  this  loose 
and  unscientific  way  of  labelling  what  he  dislikes  as  "  legend  ". 
Bu:  this  topic  is  too  big  to  discuss  at  the  end  of  an 
article. 


III. 

ASIA   MINOR:  THE   COUNTRY   AND 
ITS  RELIGION. 


III. 

ASIA  MINOR:  THE  COUNTRY  AND  ITS 
RELIGION. 

If  geography  be  regarded  as  the  study  of  the  influence  which 
the  physical  features  and  situation  of  a  country  exert  on  the 
people  who  live  in  it,  then  in  no  country  can  geography  be 
studied  better  than  in  Asia  Minor.  The  physical  features  of 
the  country  are  strongly  marked  ;  its  situation  is  peculiar  and 
unique;  its  history  can  be  observed  over  a  long  series  of  cen- 
turies, and  amid  its  infinite  variety  there  is  always  a  strongly 
marked  unity,  with  certain  clear  principles  of  evolution, 
standing  in  obvious  relation  to  the  geographical  surroundings. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Anatolian  peninsula  stretches  like  a 
bridge  between  Asia  and  Europe.  Owing  to  the  great  barrier 
of  the  Caspian,  the  Caucasus  and  the  Black  Sea,  all  migra- 
tions between  Asia  and  Europe  must  either  keep  the  northern 
side,  through  Siberia  and  Russia,  or  the  southern,  along  the 
Anatolian  road.  A  few  of  the  invasions  of  Europe  by  Asiatic 
peoples  have  taken  the  northern  path ;  but,  generally,  west- 
ward moving  migration  and  invasion  have  followed  the 
southern  road  through  Anatolia,  and  all  westward  movement 
of  civilisation  which  did  not  travel  on  shipboard  took  the 
same  path. 

Of  the  many  invasions  in  which  Europe  has  retaliated  and 
sent  her  armies  eastward  over  Asia,  only  one  of  any  import- 
ance has  passed  north  of  the  Caspian,  and  that  is  the  great 
movement  now  going  on,  whereby  Russia  is  throwing  her 

(105) 


io6  III.  Asia  Minor. 


armies,  her  railways  and  her  peoples  over  Asia  to  the  shores  of 
the  Pacific.  Otherwise,  all  movements  eastward  from  Europe 
in  so  far  as  they  did  not  go  by  sea — the  movements  of  armies, 
of  pilgrims  and  Crusaders,  of  state  messengers,  of  merchants 
and  trade — have  followed  the  lines  that  lead  eastwards  over 
Anatolia. 

In  the  second  place,  Anatolia  is  a  bridge  with  lofty  parapets. 
The  roads  traverse  the  high,  hollow,  central  plateau,  closed 
in  by  loftier  mountain  ridges  which  separate  that  open  plateau 
from  the  sea.  The  parapet  on  the  south  is  the  vast  ridge  of 
Taurus,  stretching  back  from  the  western  sea  into  the  main 
central  mass  of  the  great  Asiatic  continent,  only  at  a  few 
points  traversable  by  migrations  or  by  armies,  or  by  the 
rivers  that  drain  the  plateau  and  flow  south  in  deep  chasms 
cut  through  the  heart  of  the  mountains.  I  do  not  mean  that 
Taurus  was  ever  absolutely  untraversable.  Men  can  traverse 
any  mountains,  and  there  are  ridges  far  more  difficult  than 
Taurus.  But  (except  for  hardy  and  resolute  travellers)  it  is 
practically  impassable  in  unfavourable  weather,  and  during 
the  months  when  it  is  liable  to  be  covered  with  snow ;  ^  and 
at  all  times  elaborate  preparation  and  provision  must  be 
made  for  the  crossing  of  a  body  of  men,  for  Taurus  is 
not  a  single  narrow  ridge,  but  a  broad,  lofty  and  much 
broken  plateau,  and  the  passes  that  traverse  it  are  seventy  or 
more  miles  long.  Thus  in  practice  the  roadways  were  few, 
and  migrations  were  confined  to  known  lines. 

The  mountains  which  form  the  parapet  on  the  north, 
though  not  so  strikingly  continuous,  and  at  no  period  in 
history  called  by  one  single  name,  are  really  almost  as  serious 

'  Of  the  feeling  of  the  ancients  that  not  merely  the  mountain-passes,  but  the 
roads  across  the  open  plateau,  were  closed  to  travellers  during  the  long  winter, 
examples  are  quoted  in  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  p.  385  f.  See  Plate  VII., 
p.  139. 


PLATE  I. 


The  Pass  leading  to  Dorylaion  (from  the  window  of  a  Railway  Carriage) 
PLATE  IL 


To  face  p.  io6.      The  Central  Trade  Route  :  Sources  of  the  Maeander. 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  107 


a  barrier  confining  the  tides  of  movement  to  the  main 
Anatolian  east  and  west  roadway. 

You  enter  the  roadway  at  one  or  other  of  a  few  points, 
where  alone  entrance  is  easy,  and  you  are  driven  on,  east- 
wards or  westwards,  according  to  the  temporary  direction  of 
the  tide.  If  you  come  from  the  west,  you  enter  with  Godfrey 
and  the  Crusaders  at  Dorylaion,  or  with  Alexander  the  Great 
at  Celaenae.^  Until  a  few  years  ago  you  entered  the  bridge 
on  horseback  or  on  foot ;  now  you  enter  in  a  railway  carriage. 

Plate  I.  illustrates  the  way  from  the  coast  to  Dorylaion, 
the  great  military  road  of  the  Byzantine  Empire.  The  spot 
chosen  is  where  this  road  passes  through  a  narrow  gorge 
between  two  walls  of  rock,  which  leave  room  only  for  the 
little  Black-Water  (Kara-Su),  a  tributary  of  the  Sangarius. 
The  road  has  been  in  great  part  cut  or  tunnelled  in  the  rock. 
The  view  is  taken  from  a  window  of  the  German  railway 
train  passing  through  the  gorge. 

Plate  II.  shows  a  scene  on  the  other  chief  line  of  approach 
to  the  Plateau,  the  great  Central  Trade  Route,  which  led 
up  the  Maeander  and  the  Lycus,  past  the  salt  lake  Anava 
(or  Sanaos)  and  Apameia-Celaenae.  This  view,  with  its 
open  quiet  scenery  and  gently  sloping  hills,  when  compared 
with  Plate  I.,  shows  well  the  contrast  between  the  easy 
character  of  the  one  great  approach  which  nature  has  made 
to  the  Plateau  and  the  difficulties  that  encumber  all  other 
approaches. 

The  scene  is  the  single  head-source  of  the  Maeander  river 
in  all  its  Apamean  branches,  Marsyas,  Maeander,  Obrimas 

^  Dorylaion,  the  modern  Eski-Sheher,  junction  of  the  German  railway 
lines  to  Angora  and  to  Konia  (ultimately  to  Syria,  Mecca  and  Bagdad). 
Celsense,  the  Seleucid  and  Roman  Apameia,  present  terminus  of  the  Otto- 
man Railway  from  Smyrna  :  it  was  one  of  the  most  important  points  on  the 
great  Eastern  Trade  Route  in  Hellenistic  and  Roman  times. 


io8  III.  Asia  Minor 


and  Therma.  It  lies  in  the  high  valley  of  Aurokra  above 
Celaenae  on  the  east.  The  Ottoman  railway  has  not  yet 
reached  it,  but  will  soon  do  so. 

The  fountain  gushes  out  from  the  rocks  on  the  east  side 
of  the  valley  of  Aurokra,  and  runs  down  a  mile  or  two  to 
the  west  side  of  the  plain,  where  its  waters  collect  in  a 
marshy  lake  against  the  hills  that  divide  the  Aurokra  valley 
from  Celaenae.  The  water  of  the  lake  runs  off  under  the 
hills  through  two  holes  (which  can  be  clearly  seen  when  the 
light  falls  in  the  proper  direction  by  any  one  standing  on 
the  hills  above),  and  emerges  on  the  other  side  of  the 
hills  at  a  much  lower  level  in  the  fountains  of  the  four 
streams  of  Celaenae,  which  combine  to  form  the  river 
Maeander,^ 

The  head-source,  in  Plate  II.,  was  called  the  fountain 
Aurokrene  or  Aulokrene ;  and  the  latter  name,  which  seemed 
in  Greek  to  give  the  meaning  Flute-Fountain,  affected  the 
form  of  the  legends,  which  connected  themselves  with  this 
magnificent  spring.^  Hardly  even  in  Greece  itself  is  there 
a  spot  more  sacred  in  folk-lore  and  religion.  Here  Athena 
threw  aside  her  flute,  and  Marsyas  picked  it  up.  Here 
Marsyas  contended  with  Apollo  in  music,  and  on  one  of  the 
plane-trees  beside  the  spring  he  was  hung  up  to  be  flayed. 
In  the  plain  below  Lityerses  was  slain  by  the  sickles  of  the 
reapers.  The  physical  features  of  the  plain  are  so  striking 
that  we  need  not  wonder  to  find  so  many  legends  attached 
to  it.     The  myth  implies  as  its  scene  a  place  where  there 

^  There  is  a  fifth  stream,  Orgas,  which  rises  some  miles  south-west  of 
Celaenae  in  a  different  range  of  hills.  The  whole  series  of  fountains  and 
names  is  described  in  Cities  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  chap.  xi. 

-'The  niime/ojites  Rocreni  occurs  in  Livy,  xxxviii.,  and  marks  the  line  of  the 
robber-raid  of  the  Consul  Manlius  from  Pisidia  to  Galatia.  The  initial  vowel 
has  been  lost  in  this  form. 


laiVJlt^. 


33 


The  Co2intry  and  its  Religion  109 

abounded  the  reeds,  from  which  the  earliest  and  simplest 
kind  of  flute  was  made.  The  lake  of  Aurokra  is  in  great 
part  a  reedy  marsh,  though  the  water  lies  deep  against  the 
western  hills. 

On  this  same  road,  the  white  cliffs  of  Hierapolis  (shown 
in  the  Frontispiece)  strike  the  traveller's  eye  for  many  miles 
of  his  way  through  the  Maeander  and  the  Lycus  valleys. 
They  are  almost  literally  petrified  water,  being  the  white 
deposit  which  the  water  of  the  hot  springs  has  left  as  it 
tumbles  down  over  the  steep  cliffs  to  the  level  plain  of  the 
Lycus.  In  the  photograph  it  is  quite  impossible  to  dis- 
tinguish the  flowing  water  from  the  petrified  incrustation. 
The  form  and  colour  are  so  exactly  the  same  that  even  the 
traveller's  eye,  if  he  stands  a  little  back  from  the  falls,  is 
deceived. 

After  reaching  the  Plateau  by  one  of  the  few  entrances, 
you  move  on  eastwards,  and  pass  off  the  bridge  by  one  or 
other  of  a  few  well-marked  exits.^  If  you  come  from  Asia, 
you  follow  the  same  inevitable  paths ;  nothing  differs  except 
the  direction  of  your  motion  and  the  tides  or  the  motives 
that  impel  you. 

Thus  the  history  of  Anatolia  has  been  one  of  startling 
vicissitudes,  of  constant  variety,  of  rapid  changes  in  population, 
in  government,  in  the  trend  of  development;  and  yet  the 
unity  amid  the  variety  is  so  easy  to  comprehend  that  it  may 
fairly  be  called  unmistakable.  The  development  has  always 
lain  in  the  action  and  collision  of  forces  moving  eastwards  or 
westwards ;  it  has  rarely  been  complicated  by  side  influences 

^A  series  of  views  on  the  principal  exit  towards  the  East  through  the 
Cilician  Gates  is  given  in  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  Plates  V.-XXXI.  See 
also  Cities  of  St.  Paul,  Plates  III.-V, 


I  lo  III-  Asia  Minor. 


coming  in  from  the  sea  on  the  north  or  on  the  south  ;  ^  it  has 
been  simply  the  series  of  phases  in  the  immemorial  conflict 
between  Europe  and  Asia.  The  central  point  of  that  never- 
ending  battle  varies  from  age  to  age.  At  one  time  the 
Greeks  gather  to  a  siege  of  Troy ;  at  another  the  Arabs  or 
the  Egyptian  Memluks  storm  the  walls  of  Tarsus,  defended 
by  Greek  fire  or  by  Crusaders'  axes  and  lances,  or  by  that 
small  fraction  of  the  Armenian  kingdom  of  Cilicia  who  could 
be  induced  to  forget  their  mutual  quarrels  about  points  of 
ritual  and  unite  to  save  their  own  families  against  the 
slaughterers  from  the  East ;  at  another  the  Arabs  are  being 
beaten  back  repeatedly  from  the  ramparts  of  Constantinople, 
or  the  Turks  are  pouring  in  through  a  breach.  As  you  cast 
your  eyes  back  over  the  past,  you  see  Croesus  crossing  the 
Halys  to  destroy  a  great  kingdom,  or  you  watch  the  younger 
Cyrus  the  Persian  leading  10,000  Greeks  from  Sardis  to 
Mesopotamia,  to  show  them  how  easily  a  vast  Persian  army 
might  be  scattered  by  a  few  trained  and  disciplined  troops. 
You  may  see,  on  New  Year's  Day  in  A.D.  1148,  Louis  VII. 
with  his  French  Crusaders,  fording  hand-in-hand  the  unford- 
able  Maeander,  and  scattering  before  their  first  charge  the 
Turkish  army  drawn  up  on  the  further  bank  to  prevent  their 
crossing; 2  or  Manuel  with  his  splendid  army  of  mail-clad 
warriors,  European  and  Byzantine,  jammed  against  their  bag- 
gage train  in  that  open  pass  west  of  Pisidian  Antioch,  and 
slaughtered  at  will  by  the  Turks  charging  down  from  the 

'  The  influence  of  the  old  Ionian  colony  of  Sinope  (cp.  Strab,  p.  540)  and 
probably  also  of  the  old  Ionian  colony  of  Tarsus  (cp.  Cities  of  St.  Paul,  p.  113  ff.) 
may  be  quoted  as  to  some  degree  exceptions. 

'■'  This  brilliant  feat  of  arms  is  wrongly  attributed  by  Gibbon  to  Conrad, 
the  German  Emperor,  who  also  took  part  in  the  second  crusade.  On  the 
:ficene,  see  Cities  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  vol.  i.,  p.  162. 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  1 1 1 

higher  ground  on  the  north. ^  If  you  want  to  see  what 
happened  when  an  army  abandoned  the  few  recognised  paths, 
cast  your  eyes  on  the  soldiers  of  the  First  Crusade,  wandering 
and  perishing  amid  the  mountains  of  Anti-Taurus,  or  Frederick 
Barbarossa's  Grerman  Crusaders  struggling  over  the  central 
Taurus,  fed  by  an  Armenian  prince  in  his  stronghold  among 
the  mountains,  and  Barbarossa  himself  disappearing  under 
the  waters  of  the  Calycadnus  so  suddenly  that  his  people 
could  not  believe  he  was  dead,  and  long  imagined  that  he 
was  only  waiting  the  proper  moment  to  reappear  in  his 
German  home.  All  are  but  small  skirmishes  in  the  great 
battle  of  East  and  West 

To  illustrate  this  principle  fully  would  be  to  write  the 
history  of  the  Anatolian  peninsula.  In  every  age,  in  every 
war,  in  every  crisis,  the  opposing  forces  may  be  recognised 
as  respectively  Eastern  and  Western.  Often,  where  two 
rivals  contend  for  the  succession  to  a  throne  or  a  tent,  one 
may  be  recognised  as  champion  of  the  East,  and  the  other, 
as  his  opponent,  attracts  the  support  of  the  West;  and 
probably  that  was  the  general  rule  in  such  contests,  though 
we  are  not  always  well  enough  informed  of  the  facts.  But 
the  writer's  Historical  Geography  of  Asia  Minor,  which 
has  had  the  honour  of  being  published  by  the  Royal  Geo- 
graphical Society,  illustrates  on  page  after  page  the  infinitely 
varied  forms  in  which  the  principle  has  worked  itself  out  in 
history  (though,  from  its  extreme  brevity,  it  gives  only  the 
dry  bones  of  history,  into  which  the  reader  must  breathe 
life  for  himself) ;  and  we  pass  from  it.  I  may  only  be 
permitted  to  say,  in  passing,  that  the  experience  and  study 
of  twelve  years  since  that   book  was   written  have  amply 

1  Studies  in  the  History  and  Art  of  the  Eastern  Roman  Provinces,  p.  235  ff. 


112  III.  Asia  Minor . 


confirmed  the  general  scheme  of  topographical  history  con- 
tained in  it,  and  also  furnished  both  many  corroborations  of 
details  in  the  application  of  the  general  rules  and  many 
improvements  or  corrections  in  other  details.  I  do  not  know 
which  have  given  me  personally  greater  pleasure ;  it  is 
pleasant  to  find  that  one's  instinct  or  reasoning  has  been 
right,  but  it  is  almost  more  pleasant  to  find  that  a  mistake 
has  been  put  right  and  a  stumbling-block  cleared  away. 
The  corroboration  gives  one  confidence  to  go  on  in  the  path 
of  investigation  ;  but  the  correction  opens  a  door,  and  often 
reveals  a  new  chapter  in  the  political  or  historical  geography 
of  the  country.  Moreover,  most  of  the  corrections  have 
come  from  investigators  whom  I  might  almost  venture  to 
call  pupils  of  my  own,  because  they  made  their  first  essays 
in  my  company  or  with  my  advice ;  and  it  is  always  a 
peculiar  pleasure  to  learn  from  men  whose  early  steps  one 
has  helped  in  some  small  degree  to  direct. 

One  of  the  omissions  in  that  book  was  that  the  importance 
of  the  mountain  barriers  on  the  north  and  south  was  not 
sufficiently  worked  out,  and  thus  several  chapters  of  history 
passed  unobserved.  To  this  subject  my  studies  have  recently 
been  directed,  and  they  have  been  illuminated  by  explora- 
tions which,  after  a  long  interval  of  ten  years,  I  was  enabled 
to  resume  by  a  concurrence  of  favourable  circumstances. 
One  point  in  this  wide  subject  may  detain  us  for  a  {^^ 
moments. 

The  great  mountain  wall  of  Taurus,  on  the  southern  side 
of  the  plateau,  has  always  been  the  most  effectual  boundary- 
line  in  the  Anatolian  peninsula  ;  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  plateau  has  rarely  been  the  seat  of  a  capital,  but 
has  generally  been  subject  to  one  of  the  great  empires  of 
the  East  or  the  West.     Many  causes  of  course  contributed  to 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  113 

give  Taurus  this  importance  as  a  dividing-line  ;  but  we  here 
simply  assume  the  fact  without  analysing  the  contributory 
causes.^ 

The  ancient  records  often  express  the  bounds  of  nations 
or  of  spheres  of  influence  by  the  phrases  "  within  "  or  "  beyond 
the  Taurus".  Taurus  was  the  dividing-line  between  east  and 
west.  Even  at  the  present  day,  when  the  whole  of  Anatolia 
outside  the  walls  of  Smyrna  and  the  railway-lines  is  in  a 
sense  distinctly  Oriental,  one  feels  that,  after  crossing 
Taurus  by  the  pass  of  the  Cilician  Gates  and  descending 
south  and  east  into  Cilicia,  one  has  passed  a  line  of  demarca- 
tion and  is  surrounded  by  a  more  Oriental  spirit.  Cilicia, 
as  the  Romans  long  arranged  it,  is  more  a  part  of  Syria  than 
of  Asia  Minor.  In  it  you  detect  at  once  the  impression  of 
the  Arab  and  the  Ansarieh  ;  you  hear  yourself  addressed  no 
longer  as  Tchelebi,  which  was  practically  universal  as  a  title 
of  respect  before  you  crossed  Taurus  :  the  people  now  style 
you  Hawaja,  as  in  Syria  or  Egypt.  That  single  detail  is 
significant  of  the  changed  atmosphere  that  rules  beyond  the 
Taurus. 

In  my  Historical  Geography  the  contrast  between  the 
y^gean  coastlands  and  the  rest  of  the  great  peninsula  is 
described,  the  former  being,  as  it  were,  a  part  of  Greece,  full 
of  the  light  and  the  variety  and  the  joyous  brightness  of  the 
Greek  lands ;  the  rest,  including  the  whole  plateau,  being, 
alike  in  geographical  character  and  in  spirit,  part  of  Asia, 
impressive  in  its  immobility,  monotony  and  subdued  tone. 

^  For  example,  one  may  mention  the  difference  of  climate  between  the 
plateau  north  of  Taurus  (with  its  long  hard  winter)  and  the  hot  coast- 
lands  of  Cilicia.  My  friend  Mr.  Hogarth  emphasised  this  very  rightly  in  the 
discussion  which  ensued  after  the  paper  was  read.  Taurus  was  a  boundary, 
not  simply  because  it  was  Taurus,  but  because  of  all  the  many  physical  facts 
that  combined  to  give  it  importance.     (See  p.  139  and  Plate  VII.) 


114  ^^^-  ^^^^  Minor: 

But  one  feels  inclined  to  draw  a  further  distinction,  and  to 
describe  the  west  coast  as  Greek,  the  plateau  within  Taurus 
as  the  Debatable  Land,  and  the  country  beyond  Taurus  as 
Eastern  and  Asiatic.  Yet  the  moment  that  one  has  uttered 
the  words  one  feels  that  they  are  inaccurate.  More  than  any 
other  city,  Tarsus  impresses  one  as  the  meeting-place  of  East 
and  West.  And  in  history  what  variety  is  there  in  the  lot 
of  Cilicia  and  in  the  kind  of  division  which  Taurus  marks ! 

In  the  long  wars  between  the  Byzantine  (or  rather  the 
Roman)  Empire  and  the  Saracens,  Taurus  with  Anti-Taurus 
divided  the  Romans  from  the  Arabs  for  centuries,  Tarsus  on 
the  south-west  and  Melitene  on  the  north-east  being  the 
frontier  fortresses  on  the  Arab  side.  The  Arabs  twice  at- 
tempted to  advance  their  frontier  from  Tarsus  over  Taurus 
and  to  hold  Tyana ;  but  both  the  Caliphs  Harun-al-Rashid 
and  Al-Mamun,  each  of  whom  built  a  mosque  and  stationed 
a  garrison  in  Tyana,  found  it  necessary  to  draw  back  to 
Tarsus  before  two  years  had  elapsed. 

For  a  longer  period  the  Arabs  held  Caesareia,  in  their  ad- 
vance from  Melitene  ;  but  that  also  they  failed  to  hold  per- 
manently. They  could  never  establish  themselves  beyond 
Taurus.  They  crossed  that  mountain  barrier  in  their  annual 
raids,  often  in  two  raids  per  annum ;  they  captured  almost 
every  city  in  the  whole  land  ;  they  thrice  besieged  Constanti- 
nople; and  yet  through  three  long  centuries  of  such  war 
they  never  held  a  foot  of  land  beyond  Taurus  outside  the 
range  of  their  weapons  at  the  moment.  They  conquered 
and  they  passed,  and  the  people  of  the  land  recovered  from 
every  blow  with  marvellous  rapidity.  In  all  history  there 
is  probably  no  other  proof  so  striking  of  the  elasticity  and 
recuperative  power  that  belongs  to  the  well-knit  society  of 
an  organised  people,  welded  together  by  a  long-established 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  1 1 5 

system  of  reasoned  law  and  by  a  common  religion.  Roman 
society  was  too  compact  for  the  Arabs  to  conquer — a  hundred 
battles  and  a  hundred  defeats  had  no  serious  effect  on  it. 
The  lower  civilisation  of  a  loosely  knit  Oriental  despotism 
could  make  no  permanent  impression  on  the  fabric  that 
Roman. organising  genius  had  created. 

But,  if  the  Roman  social  fabric  survived  the  sufferings  of 
those  terrible  centuries,  when  Arab  raids  were  to  be  dreaded 
every  year,  the  suffering  was  terrible.  The  Roman  civilisa- 
tion had  weakened  the  stamina  of  the  nation,  and  a  long 
continuance  of  peace  had  made  the  general  population  feeble, 
unwarlike,  perfectly  content  to  be  defended  by  a  professional 
army,  which  had  become  almost  a  caste.  When  a  civilised 
people  has  lost  the  fighting  strength,  which  must  in  the  last 
resort  be  its  defence  against  the  attack  of  barbarism,  it  is 
always  in  danger.  A  large  population  of  traders  and  artisans, 
clergy  and  schoolmasters,  and  other  peaceful  persons,  was 
powerless  before  a  small  force  of  hardy  barbarians,  accustomed 
to  weapons  from  infancy,  regarding  war  as  the  one  business 
of  life  and  the  chief  duty  of  religion.  Hence  the  Arab 
raiders  could  go  where  they  pleased,  ravage  almost  any  city 
they  chose,  and  easily  avoid  the  slower  regular  armies  of 
Roman  trained  soldiers ;  but  they  could  hold  nothing  per- 
manently beyond  the  line  of  Taurus. 

The  professional  army  might  have  found  it  an  easier  task 
to  defend  the  line  of  Mount  Taurus  and  keep  the  Moham- 
medan wolves  from  the  Roman  sheepfold,  if  the  great  pass 
of  the  Cilician  Gates  had  been  the  only  way  of  crossing 
Taurus  from  Cilicia.  That  pass,  an  easy  road  for  the  most 
part  to  traverse,  is  also  a  very  easy  one  to  defend  at  many 
points  by  even  a  small  force.  In  Byzantine  time  it  was 
strongly  garrisoned,  and  a  line  of  beacons  flashed  the  news 


ii6  III.  Asia  Minor. 


to  Constantinople  as  soon  as  the  Arabs  were  moving  against 
it  But  the  long-continued  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  Roman 
Empire  had  opened  other  roads.  Taurus  had  never  been 
an  absolutely  impassable  barrier,  and  under  the  Roman  peace 
many  cities  had  grown  and  prospered  in  its  highest  grounds, 
where  now  no  dwelling  is  known  except  a  few  black  tents 
of  nomads  in  the  summer.  Those  cities,  rich  and  prosperous, 
had  improved  the  roads,  and  made  it  easy  for  the  light  raid- 
ing armies  of  the  Arabs  to  cross  the  mountains. 

If,  at  a  later  time,  the  more  barbarous  Turk  achieved  what 
the  more  polished  and  fiery  Arabs  had  failed  to  do,  the 
Turkish  triumph  exemplified  the  only  way  in  which,  apart 
from  practical  extermination,  barbarism  can  conquer  a  civi- 
lised and  organised  society,  viz.,  by  breaking  up  the  fabric 
and  constitution  of  society  and  reducing  it  once  more  to  an 
aggregation  of  disconnected  atoms.  The  Turkish  conquest 
was  not  achieved  through  pitched  battles  and  victories ;  it 
was  gained  by  the  nomad  tribes  which  spread  over  the  land, 
destroyed  the  bonds  of  communication  which  held  society 
together,  and  reduced  the  country  from  the  settled  to  the 
nomadic  stage.  The  Turkish  conquest  meant  the  nomadisa- 
tion  of  the  country. 

But  the  number  of  questions  which  open  on  every  side 
when  one  begins  to  discuss  that  great  subject  of  the  degener- 
ation from  Roman  organisation  to  the  nomadic  stage  in 
Asiatic  Turkey  is  endless ;  and  we  must  return  to  our  im- 
mediate topic,  viz.,  the  effect  of  the  Taurus  range  as  a 
division  between  races,  as  a  defence  of  a  settled  people 
against  invasion,  and  as  a  limiting  wall  to  determine  the  lines 
of  migration  or  of  ecclesiastical  organisation. 

If  Taurus  divided  Arab  and  Roman,  Mohammedan  and 
Christian,  in  the  time  of  the  Saracen  wars  (641-965),  it  was 


PLATE   V. 


The  Rock  and  Castle  of  Sivri-Hissar. 
PLATE  VL 


To  face  p.  ii6.  Roman  Milestone  on  the  Syrian  Route. 


Sic  p.  1 33. 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  117 

again  the  boundary  between  Christian  and  Mohammedan  in 
the  early  Turkish  period  for  about  four  centuries  beginning 
from  107 1  A.D.  The  Turks  came  in  from  Central  Asia  over 
Armenia,  and  held  the  central  Anatolian  plateau  for  centuries 
before  they  gained  possession  of  Cilicia ;  they  captured  Con- 
stantinople and  advanced  to  Belgrad  before  they  captured 
Tarsus.  Christian  powers  —  Byzantines,  Latin  Crusaders 
and  Armenian  princes — quarrelled  with  one  another  for 
possession  of  Cilicia.  Taurus  saved  the  land  by  the  sea  from 
Turkish  armies ;  but  there  was  no  such  barrier  on  the  Syrian 
side,^  and  the  Memluk  sultans  of  Egypt  destroyed  the 
Christian  kingdom  of  Cilicia.  Here  again  the  nomad  Turk- 
men tribes,  gradually  spreading  across  Taurus  and  over  the 
plains,  were  the  true  conquerors,  sapping  and  destroying  the 
links  that  held  together  society  in  the  country. 

Thus  the  effect  of  the  Taurus  as  a  division  between  nations, 
as  well  as  in  directing  and  limiting  the  march  of  armies, 
might  in  itself  furnish  a  great  subject. 

Only  in  one  case  is  there  a  district  of  any  importance  in 
the  Anatolian  peninsula  which  lies  outside  of  our  classifica- 
tion into  central  plateau,  mountain-rim  and  coast  valleys. 
There  is  one  secondary  valley  on  the  north,  where  there 
intervenes  between  the  plateau-rim  and  the  sea  a  second 
mountain-ridge.  Between  these  two  parallel  ridges  there 
stretches  east  and  west  a  valley  of  considerable  importance, 
forming  the  most  fertile  part  of  the  ancient  country  of 
Paphlagonia.  That  valley  has  a  history  which  stands 
entirely  apart  from  the  history  of  either  the  plateau  on  the 
one  hand  or  of  the  sea-coast  cities  on  the  other.  Just  as  you 
might  sail  and  explore  along  the  coast,  and  travel  extensively 

'  The  ridge  of  Amanus,  which  bounds  Cilicia  on  the  east,  is  easily  crossed 
by  passes  about  2,000  ft.  high  or  less. 


ii8  III.  Asia  Minor 


in  the  northern  parts  of  the  plateau  itself,  yet  never  enter 
the  great  Paphlagonian  valley,  so  you  might  write  a  minute 
study  of  the  history  of  the  coast  and  of  the  plateau,  and 
hardly  ever  have  occasion  to  mention  the  intermediate 
valley.  And  yet  the  valley  had  a  great  history.  It  con- 
tained some  powerful  cities.  The  wars  of  the  Mithridatic 
dynasty  of  kings  against  the  Romans  and  the  states  of  the 
West,  for  the  most  part,  were  fought  or  manoeuvred  along 
that  valley.  Some  of  the  most  obscure  campaigns  in  the 
long  wars  between  the  kings  of  the  Romans  and  the  Saracen 
invaders  seem  to  have  taken  place  in  the  valley,  and  those 
campaigns  are  so  obscure  because  the  ordinary  data  for 
interpreting  the  evidence  by  the  conditions  of  the  plateau  or 
the  coast  fail  us  for  the  intermediate  Paphlagonian  valley. 
Its  cities  became  even  more  important,  in  comparison  to  the 
rest  of  the  country,  during  the  earlier  stages  of  the  Turkish 
period,  and  are  often  mentioned. 

But  that  long  history  of  the  Paphlagonian  valley  has 
never  been  written.^  Its  many  ancient  towns  are  for  the 
most  part  unknown  even  by  name.  Perhaps  the  task  can- 
not be  achieved,  because  recorded  history  has  kept  to  the 
leading  paths,  and  neglected  the  secondaiy  roads ;  but  if  the 
task  is  attempted  it  demands  a  special  historian,  who  is  pre- 
pared to  explore  and  study  it  by  itself  and  for  itself. 

Once  you  have  reached  the  plateau  it  is,  as  a  rule,  possible 
to  make  a  road  almost  anywhere.  Yet  even  there  there  are 
certain  gates  towards  which  many  roads  must  converge,  and 
through  which  they  must  pass.  Two  zones  of  mountains, 
whose  old  names  are  unknown,  and  which  are  almost  name- 

1  M.  Theodore  Reinach  has  done  all  that  is  possible  without  long  and 
methodical  exploration  to  illuminate  the  bearing  of  this  valley  on  the  Mithrid- 
atic history;  but  want  of  personal  knowledge  of  the  localities  makes  the 
geographical  side  of  his  excellent  study  necessarily  niadequate. 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  119 

less  in  modern  times,  run  north  and  south  across  central 
Phrygia,  and  roads  must  keep  either  to  the  north  or  the 
south  of  them.  All  travellers  from  Ephesus  to  the  East 
passed  by  the  southern  end  of  those  mountains ;  but 
travellers  from  Smyrna  and  northern  Lydia  generally  went 
by  the  northern  end.  The  routes  may  be  distinguished  as 
the  "  Central  Trade  Route  "  and  the  "  Royal  Road  ">  The 
two  modern  railways  from  Smyrna  follow  the  ancient  lines. 

The  lofty  ridge  which  comes  up  from  the  west  from 
Trojan  Ida,  called  Temnos  and  Dindymos  in  parts  of  its 
course,  approaches  very  close  to  those  central  Phrygian 
mountains ;  and  a  narrow  glen,  down  which  flows  a  tributary 
of  the  Maeander,  divides  them.  That  glen  forms  a  funnel,  up 
or  down  which  roads  and  travellers  going  in  very  diverse 
directions  must  necessarily  pass.  For  about'  ten  or  twelve 
miles  persons  going  from  south  to  north  travel  side  by  side 
with  others  who  are  going  from  east  to  west.  Their  roads 
all  converge  to  one  end  of  the  glen,  and  diverge  again  at  the 
other. 

Until  that  glen  was  noted  on  the  map,  and  its  importance 
observed,  the  march  of  the  Ten  Thousand,  which  Xenophon 
has  described,  was  an  insoluble  riddle.  In  my  earlier  years 
of  exploration,  having  only  the  vague,  featureless  and  in- 
accurate old  maps,  I  found  the  glen  a  sore  trial  and  puzzle. 
Filled  with  the  desire  to  be  constantly  traversing  new  routes 
and  to  avoid  repetition,  I  found  myself  in  the  most  annoy- 
ing way  doing  the  treadmill  up  and  down  the  steep  ascent. 
In  one  year,  when  thoroughly  on  my  guard  against  it  and 
resolved  to  avoid  it,  I  traversed  it  three  times. 

But  this  repetition  only  gave  proper  emphasis  to  its  im- 
portance. Then  it  became  obvious  that  the  Ten  Thousand, 
^  On  the  two  routes  see  "  Roads  and  Travel  "  (Hastings'  Diet.  Bib.,  v.,  390). 


I20  III.  Asia  Minor. 


who  had  marched  from  Sard  is  towards  the  southern  end  of 
the  central  Phrygian  mountains,  as  if  to  follow  the  southern 
route,  and  had  turned  backwards  towards  the  north-west, 
must  have  traversed  the  glen  and  gone  round  the  northern 
end  of  the  mountains.  No  other  way  was  possible,  and  when 
this  observation  was  applied,  it  was  easy  to  follow  the  march 
of  the  Ten  Thousand  all  over  Phrygia,  and  to  say  at  any 
point  that  Xenophon's  foot  must  have  trod  within  a  few 
hundred  yards  of  where  we  stood.  At  the  south-western 
entrance  to  the  glen  stands  Keramon  Agora,  the  Market  of 
Tiles,  that  "  peopled  city " ;  and  after  leaving  its  north- 
eastern exit,  the  eastward  bound  army  soon  found  itself  in 
the  broad  plain  of  Kaystros. 

Communication  on  the  coasts,  of  course,  took  place  mostly 
by  ship,  and  lies  outside  our  present  subject,  except  in  so  far 
as  it  affected  or  was  affected  by  land  conditions.  Since  the 
mountains  touched  the  sea  at  various  points,  and  the  coast 
road  was  tedious  and  difficult,  communication  was  thrown 
more  and  more  completely  on  to  shipboard,  and  was  there- 
fore for  centuries  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Greeks.  Hence 
the  coast  towns,  as  far  east  as  Tarsus  and  Trapezus,  were 
strongly  affected  by  Greek  influence,  and  often  even  trans- 
formed into  cities  of  the  Greek  type,  with  free  institutions  and 
constitutional  government  by  elected  magistrates  according 
to  published  law. 

Moreover,  the  sea  was  dangerous  and  difficult.  On  the 
north  coast,  the  Black  Sea  was  the  most  uncertain  and 
treacherous  known  to  the  Greeks :  at  no  period  of  the  year 
could  the  weather  be  counted  on  ;  in  the  most  settled  summer 
weather  a  tempest  might  occur.  Far  back,  in  the  beginning 
of  Greek  history,  we  can  dimly  trace  the  immense  influence 
exerted  on  the  Greek  mind  by  the  first  experience  of  that 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  121 

sea  with  its  dangers  and  its  wonders.  It  is  not  too  much  to 
say,  though  here  we  can  only  make  the  strong  statement  and 
pass  on,  that  the  discovery  of  the  Black  Sea  played  as  im- 
portant a  part  in  forming  and  training  the  Greek  mind,  in 
determining  its  bent,  in  moulding  its  literary  expression,  as 
the  discovery  of  America  has  played  in  the  modem  world. 

But  the  life  of  a  country  is  always  mirrored  and  idealised 
in  its  religion  ;  and  the  religion  of  the  coast  cities  must  neces- 
sarily have  been  moulded  a  great  deal  by  their  dependence 
on  the  sea.  This  we  can  observe  well  on  the  north  coast. 
The  Ruler  of  the  Sea,  Achilles  Pontarches,  was  the  great 
deity  of  the  north  coast  cities ;  an  association  of  cities  was 
allied  in  his  worship,  and  the  high  priest  was  called  by  the 
same  name  as  the  god,  the  Pontarch.  The  god  had  his 
chosen  home  in  an  island,  opposite  the  mouths  of  the  Danube, 
where  he  dwelt  with  Helena,  the  island  which  occasionally 
appeared  before  the  storm-tossed  sailor  as  a  haven  of  quiet. 
But  he  was  reverenced  also  in  the  cities  whose  prosperity 
depended  on  his  favour,  and  whose  sailors  made  their  vows 
to  him  before  they  sailed  and  paid  them  after  their  safe  re- 
turn. He  was  worshipped  in  all  the  cities  in  South  Russia 
and  the  Crimea,  as  well  as  on  the  Asia  Minor  coasts  ;  but 
probably  his  chief  seat  was  in  Sinope,  that  great  harbour  of 
the  early  time,  on  the  promontory  that  juts  out  far  into  the 
sea.  And  when  a  new  form  of  religion  required  a  new  ex- 
pression of  the  old  religious  fact,  a  Christian  saint  was  sub- 
stituted for  the  pagan  Pontarch  Achilles ;  and  St.  Phocas  of 
Sinope  became  the  sailors'  god,  or  at  least  their  patron  and 
protector. 

The  severance  of  the  north  coast  from  the  plateau  is  thus 
as  strongly  marked  in  religion  as  in  history.  It  would  not, 
however,  be  true  to  say  that  the  severance  in  religion  was 


122  III.  Asia  Mino7' 


absolute.  The  mountain-ridges  which  barred  and  hemmed 
in  ordinary  communication  offered  no  insuperable  barrier  to 
the  spread  of  religion.  The  strange  fervid  cults  of  the  plateau 
proved  as  impressive  on  the  coastlands  as  they  did  in  the 
European  lands  to  which  they  spread  in  wave  after  wave. 
Any  divergence  in  the  religion  of  the  coast  from  that  of  the 
plateau  took  the  form  of  additions — such  as  the  cult  of 
Achilles  Pontarches — to  a  common  religious  stock. 

On  the  south  coast  less  is  known  of  maritime  religious 
foundations.  The  existing  records  show  little  except  gods 
of  the  common  Anatolian  type.  Yet  there  must  have  been 
others.  Especially  at  Myra  in  Lycia  we  may  look  for  some 
special  sailors'  cult.  Myra  was  the  harbour  for  the  direct 
over-sea  communication  with  Syria  and  with  Egypt.^  This 
communication  was  not  old — the  early  ships  never  ventured 
to  desert  the  coast  and  strike  boldly  out  to  sea.  But  at  least 
as  early  as  the  first  century  of  our  era  vessels  sailed  from 
Myra  straight  across  to  the  Syrian  and  Egyptian  coasts ; 
and  the  large  ships  which  carried  the  Egyptian  corn  to  the 
Roman  granaries  habitually  tried  to  run  straight  across  from 
Alexandria  to  Myra.  Westerly  winds  blow  with  wonderful 
uniformity  in  the  Levant,  and  those  ships  could  commonly 
trust  to  a  good  run  due  north  to  the  Lycian  coast.  But  if 
the  west  wind  blew  too  strong,  the  ship  would  make  too  much 
leeway,  and  find  itself  unable  to  clear  the  western  end  of 
Cyprus ;  and  then  it  was  obliged  to  run  to  the  Syrian  coast 
and  keep  round  the  east  and  the  north  of  Cyprus.  In  such 
circumstances  the  blessing  of  the  god  of  Myra  would  be  sought 
with  special  devotion ;  and,  though  this  cult  is  not  proven  in 
its  pagan  form,  which  as  we  have  seen  was  only  of  quite  late 

^  St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  p.  298  1. ;  "  Roads  and  Travel  in  N.T.  Times  "  in 
Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  v.,  p.  381. 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  123 

origin,  the  Christian  cult  which  took  its  place  is  well  known. 
St.  Nicholas  of  Myra  played  the  same  part  among  the  sailors 
of  the  Levant  as  St.  Phocas  of  Sinope  did  among  those  of 
the  Black  Sea. 

Phocas  was  a  martyr  of  the  reign  of  Trajan.  Nicholas  was 
Bishop  of  Myra  more  than  three  centuries  later.  The 
Christian  form  evidently  established  itself  earlier  on  the  north 
coast  than  on  the  south,  and  this  is  in  strict  accord  with  other 
evidence,  which  shows  that  the  new  religion  had  taken  deep 
root  in  the  northern  coastlands  by  the  time  of  Trajan,  where- 
as on  the  south  it  was  very  much  later  in  attaining  such 
strength. 

But  it  is  not  merely  armies,  or  migrations  of  peoples, 
which  have  swept  eastwards  or  westwards  across  Anatolia. 
Art  and  knowledge,  new  thoughts  and  new  religions  have 
trod  the  same  path  in  either  direction ;  they,  too,  move 
westwards  or  eastwards  across  the  bridge,  rarely  northwards 
or  southwards.  Such  movements,  though  less  imposing 
and  romantic  than  the  march  of  armies  and  the  combat  of 
heroes,  may  justifiably  detain  our  attention  longer,  precisely 
because  they  are  less  striking  and  more  easily  escape 
notice. 

There  are  some  apparent  exceptions,  which,  however, 
vanish  under  more  careful  scrutiny,  and  therefore  only  help 
to  emphasise  the  general  principle.  One  example  may 
here  be  given.  The  present  writer  is  responsible  for  the 
theory  (published  in  1882)  that  the  Greek  alphabet,  after 
travelling  by  ship  with  the  Ionian  merchants  to  Sinope, 
penetrated  thence  southwards  across  the  mountains  into  the 
central  plateau,  where  we  find  it  in  use  east  of  the  Halys 
about  the  seventh  century  B.C.  But  after  further  study  he 
retracted  this  theory,  and  argued  that  the  Greek  alphabet 


i24  III.  Asia  Minor. 


was  carried  up  eastwards  from  the  west  coast,  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  trade  and  political  relations ;  and  dated  that 
communication  by  the  recorded  fact  that  a  king  of  Phrygia 
was  married  to  a  daughter  of  Agamemnon,  King  of  iEolic 
Cyme,  about  700  B.C,^  Historic  tradition  remembered  that 
dynastic  fact — a  striking  example  of  the  way  in  which  a 
royal  family  embodies  and  represents  the  history  of  its 
nation  ;  and  the  union  of  the  two  royal  families  stands  to 
us  for  the  intercommunication  between  the  active  Greek 
cities  of  the  west  coast  and  the  peoples  of  the  plateau,  in 
the  course  of  which  the  alphabet  and  many  other  ideas 
passed  eastwards  or  westwards.  That  second  theory  may 
now  be  regarded  as  the  accepted  view.  Even  those  English 
scholars  who  accept  no  historical  theory,  unless  it  is  printed 
in  German,  may  accept  this  view  with  easy  minds,  because 
it  has  been  rediscovered  independently  by  a  learned  and 
able  young  German  professor,  A.  Koerte,  who,  travelling  in 
Anatolia  about  five  years  after  the  second  view  had  been 
published  and  republished  in  the  Jotirnal  of  Hellenic  Studies, 
soon  found  out  and  made  known  the  truth,  gently  rebuking 
the  error  of  the  English  scholar  who  had  advanced  the  first 
theory. 

Such  movements  of  thought  and  religion  are  complicated 
by  another  factor,  the  influence  of  the  land.  Those  move- 
ments did  not  merely  sweep  across  the  country  like  armies 
from  one  side  or  the  other ;  sometimes  they  originated  in 
the  country ;  sometimes  they  were  modified,  profoundly  or 
slightly,  as  the  case  might  be,  in  their  passage.  An  army 
may  march  across  the  country,  gaining  no  material  strength, 
but  merely  losing  part  of  its  force,  and  exercising  no  influence 
on  the  population  except  to  impoverish  it — although  some- 
">■  Journal  of  Hell.  Stud.,  1889,  p.  i85  f. 


PLATE   VIII. 


The  Tomb  of  Midas  the  King :  a  Phrygian  Holy  Place.  See  p.  139. 


PLATE   XVIII. 


Part  of  a  Monastery  above  Bin-Bir-Kilisse,  showing  short  zones  of  brick  used  as 

ornament  in  a  stone  building. 

To  face  p.  124.  See  p.  161. 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  125 

times  even  an  army  may  learn  something  in  its  long  travels, 
and  those  who  return  to  their  own  land  may,  like  the  remnant 
of  the  Crusaders,  come  back  wiser  and  better  able  to  under- 
stand the  world  than  when  they  started.  On  the  other  hand, 
an  idea  moves  over  the  land  by  passing  from  mind  to  mind  ; 
it  is  sensitive  and  living  as  it  moves. 

This  geographical  influence,  the  power  of  the  country  on 
the  minds  of  men,  may  take  one  of  two  forms.  In  the  first 
place,  it  may  arise  out  of  the  situation  of  Anatolia  as  a  bridge 
and  meeting-place  between  Eastern  and  Western  ideas. 
When  the  thoughts  and  knowledge  of  two  diverse  peoples 
meet,  either  in  alliance  or  in  hostility,  the  result  is  not  to  be 
represented  as  a  simple  addition.  Ideas  are  not  like  dead 
matter  to  be  placed  side  by  side :  they  unite  and  are  pro- 
ductive, or  they  die ;  but  they  cannot  remain  inert  and 
unvarying.  The  result  of  their  meeting  may  be,  and 
commonly  is,  more  like  a  process  of  multiplication  ;  occasion- 
ally, it  is  a  process  of  division  or  destruction.  For  example, 
the  invention  of  the  art  of  coinage  is  attributed  to  Asia  Minor 
by  Herodotus;  and  modern  opinion  agrees  unanimously 
with  him.^  In  the  great  highway  of  commerce  and  inter- 
course it  was  natural  that  this  idea  of  a  common  measure  of 
value,  guaranteed  by  a  trustworthy  authority,  should  be  struck 
out.  Along  with  this  invention  we  may  refer  to  the  specula- 
tion of  M.  Radet  ^ — in  one  of  the  most  brilliant  pages  of  his 
striking  work  on  Lydia — that  the  organisation  of  trade  and 
caravans  and  bazaars,  the  typical  Oriental  method  of  com- 
merce, belongs  to  the  same  country. 

^It  is  generally  attributed  to  Lydia;  Professor  P.  Gardner  has  recently 
maintained  that  it  should  be  attributed  to  the  Ionian  Greek  cities. 

2  Criticised  and  accepted  with  some  modification  in  the  writer's  Cities  and 
Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  vol.  ii.,  p.  416. 


126  III.  Asia  Minor: 


Similarly,  the  development  and  improvement  in  practical 
working  of  many  ideas  springs  from  the  intercourse  and 
jostling  of  many  men  and  many  minds  along  the  great 
bridge.  The  simplification  of  chronological  reckoning  by 
the  use  of  a  definite  era,  so  that  a  date  can  be  expressed  by 
a  single  number,  may  belong  to  Asia  Minor ;  it  became 
common,  and  probably  it  originated,  in  the  adapting  of 
Greek  ideas  to  a  wider  sphere  of  practical  life,  which  occurred 
after  Greece  went  forth  under  Alexander  the  Great  to  con- 
quer the  East,  when  it  settled  down  under  his  successors  to 
the  great  practical  problem  of  how  to  rule  the  conquered 
world.  The  cumbrous  method  of  dating  by  the  annual  magis- 
trates of  the  city,  which  commended  itself  to  the  patriotism 
and  pride  of  the  Greek  citizen  in  Greece,  became  too  obviously 
unworkable  in  the  wider  sphere  of  the  Hellenised  East.  In 
no  part  of  the  ancient  world  is  the  custom  of  expressing  dates 
by  counting  from  a  fixed  era  more  firmly  established  in 
common  everyday  use  than  in  one  district  of  Asia  Minor, 
embracing  the  eastern  part  of  Lydia  and  the  western  half 
of  Phrygia. 

But,  in  the  second  place,  there  is  a  growing  opinion  among 
the  most  recent  investigators — an  opinion  strongly  held  by 
the  present  writer — that  Anatolia  was  not  merely  an  inter- 
mediary, developing  foreign  ideas  in  a  practical  way,  but 
also  played  a  not  unimportant  part  as  an  originator.  We 
are  inevitably  forced  back  to  a  time  when  Anatolia  was  not 
merely  a  bridge  between  opposite  lands  and  great  peoples, 
but  was  itself  the  centre  of  a  great  empire  exerting  an  in- 
fluence on  the  outer  world.  The  empire  is  closely  connected 
with  the  most  fascinating  and  the  most  obscure  historical 
problems  which  are  at  the  present  time  under  discussion. 
Every  step  that  is  being  made  in  the  rediscovery  of  the  early 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  127 

Greek  world,  and  the  history  of  early  intercourse  in  the 
Eastern  Mediterranean  lands,  constitutes  at  the  same  time 
indirectly  an  advance  in  the  history  of  the  ancient  Anatolian 
world,  even  though  the  discoverer  is  not  conscious  of  the  side 
light  which  he  is  throwing  on  that  subject.  Twenty  years 
ago  that  Anatolian  Empire  was  not  even  dreamed  about  by 
any  one  ;  even  yet  it  is  almost  an  unknown  quantity,  which 
is  to  be  estimated  from  its  effects  more  than  from  direct 
evidence  about  its  actual  nature.  But  the  direct  evidence  is 
slowly  being  discovered — very  slowly,  because  there  is  no 
organised  effort  being  made  to  discover  it,  but  mere  sporadic 
experiments  by  occasional  travellers,  generally  inexperienced, 
who,  as  soon  as  they  acquire  experience  and  become  skilled 
and  interested  in  the  investigation,  are  drafted  off  to  other 
spheres  of  life.  But  still  discovery,  though  slow,  does  pro- 
gress ;  and  what  ten  years  ago  was  reckoned  by  many  only 
a  dream,  is  now  admittedly  a  real  factor  in  history,  which 
has  an  acknowledged  place  in  every  modern  discussion  of  the 
early  Mediterranean  world,  and  which,  after  ten  or  twenty 
years,  will  occupy  far  greater  space  than  it  does  now.^ 

An  ancient  system  of  writing  in  hieroglyphics,  different 
from  any  other  known  system  of  expressing  thought  by 
visible  and  permanent  symbols,  is  known  in  Asia  Minor 
through  a  long  process  of  development,  and  is  dimly  trace- 
able  as   an    influence   on   other   countries,^     Characteristic 

1  Five  years  after  the  forecast  in  the  text  was  printed,  it  was  justified  by 
Dr.  Winckler's  excavations  at  Boghaz-Keui,  which  within  a  few  weeks  after 
their  inception  demonstrated  the  existence  of  this  ancient  Anatolian  Empire. 
The  excavations  were  made  in  the  city  which  already  in  1882  the  writer  de- 
scribed in  the  following  terms:  "There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  was  the 
capital,  or  at  least  one  of  the  strongest  cities,  of  a  genuinely  oriental  power 
which  ruled  over  a  wide  country  "  {Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society, 
1882,  p.  4). 

-See  below,  p.  159.  > 


128  III.  Asia  Minor. 


Anatolian  artistic  forms  have  been  studied  and  specified  by 
several  investigators,  though  still  they  are  chiefly  traceable 
as  the  unknown  factor  needed  to  explain  the  development  of 
the  East  Mediterranean  world. 

Most  certain  and  most  typical  of  Anatolia  is  its  religion, 
the  influence  of  which  on  the  Greek  and  Roman  world  is  the 
one  form  in  which  Anatolian  influence  has  been  long  recog- 
nised by  modern  scholars.  This  they  could  hardly  fail  to  do, 
seeing  that  the  ancients  themselves  acknowledge  it,  describe 
it,  and  inveigh  against  it ;  but  still  it  was  left  to  compara- 
tively recent  scholars  to  show  how  far-reaching  and  long- 
continued  that  influence  was ;  and  among  those  scholars  the 
most  acute  and  able  has  probably  been  Mr.  P.  Foucart, 
formerly  Director  of  the  French  School  of  Athens,^  who  writes 
of  Anatolian  religion  entirely  from  the  Greek  point  of  view 
as  being  an  outrage  on  the  Greek  spirit,  saved  from  being 
abominable  only  by  becoming  sometimes  ridiculous  in  its 
fervour.  But  at  least  he  established  the  fact  that  this  influence 
spread  in  wave  after  wave  of  a  sort  of  religious  revivalism 
over  the  classical  world,  mostly  among  the  uneducated  classes, 
but  still  often  affecting  the  population  so  profoundly  as  to 
receive  State  recognition  or  require  State  regulation  and  even 
coercion.  For  good  or  for  evil,  it  was  at  least  enormously 
powerful. 

In  all  these  departments,  writing,  art,  religion  (and  doubt- 
less others  might  be  added),  there  is  perceptible  a  connection 
with  the  geographical  character  of  the  country.  Elsewhere 
I  have  argued  ^  that  the  hieroglyphics  must  have  been  origin- 
ated on  the  great  central  plains  ;  and  I  believe  that  an  impor- 
tant part  in  the  domestication  of  certain  animals  must  be  as- 

^  Foucart,  Les  Associations  Religieuses  chez  les  Grecs,  1873. 
^Cities  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  vol.  i.,  p.  xv. 


PLATE   IX. 


To  face  p.  128. 


The  Grave  of  a  Phrygian  Chiet. 


See  p.  139. 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  129 

signed  to  the  same  localities.  The  soil  of  those  now  desert 
plains  is  generally  highly  fertile.  Only  the  application  of 
water  and  skill  is  needed  to  make  them  very  fruitful ;  and 
the  ruins  of  large  and  rich  cities  are  found  where  now  the 
country  is  absolutely  barren,  and  where  it  is  barely  possible 
for  a  few  families  to  support  life  owing  to  the  scarcity  of 
water.  In  the  most  arid  parts  of  the  plateau  one  observes 
the  remains  of  great  engineering  works  designed  to  store 
water.  On  the  edge  of  the  mountains,  where  the  torrents  at 
the  present  day  carry  down  a  great  mass  of  water  during 
rain  and  are  dry  again  an  hour  after  the  rain  has  ceased,  the 
beds  were  formerly  blocked  by  a  series  of  embankments  each 
of  which  held  up  a  body  of  water  and  the  soil  borne  down  by 
the  water ;  but  all  are  now  broken  and  useless.  I  have  seen 
numberless  cisterns,  some  small,  some  very  large,  most  of 
them  now  always  dry ;  and  I  have  traced  for  part  of  its  course 
a  very  large  artificial  stream  winding  round  the  edges  of  the 
Taurus  and  carrying  its  water  to  form  a  marsh  many  miles 
away  from  its  source,  because  no  one  now  cultivates  the  land. 
I  made  a  cutting  across  the  top  of  a  large  broad  embankment, 
fully  fifty  feet  high  in  the  middle,  and  about  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  in  length,  which  crosses  a  depression  in  the  plain 
near  Khadyn-Khan  :  it  is  evidently  a  dam  intended  to  store 
up  water  ;  but,  though  it  is  still  as  perfect  apparently  as  ever, 
it  holds  up  none,  because  the  means  of  conducting  the  water 
to  it  from  the  hills  are  ruined.  Villagers  have  brought  to 
me  lengths  of  large  terra-cotta  channels,  which  they  dug  up 
on  the  side  of  a  gentle  elevation  in  the  centre  of  the  Axylon, 
many  miles  away  from  any  source.  One  who  is  on  the  out- 
look will  find  everywhere  numberless  examples  of  skilful 
works  like  these ;  and  I  have  been  told  by  engineers  of  far  more 
wonderful  feats  of  engineering  which  I  hesitate  to  describe 

9 


130  III.  Asia  Minor: 

in  the  terms  of  my  informants,  until  I  can  vouch  for  them  by- 
personal  examination. 

All  such  works  have  a  religious  side,  because  they  were  not 
carried  out  through  the  initiative  of  the  ignorant  peasantry. 
The  arts  that  were  needed  to  make  those  wide  plains  pro- 
ductive and  useful  to  man  were  all  embodied  and  taught  in 
the  religion  of  the  country.  The  domesticated  animals  were 
all  sacred,  and  the  treatment  of  them  was  prescribed  as  part 
of  religious  ritual.^ 

As  might  be  expected,  therefore,  it  is  in  religion  that  the 
direct  influence  of  geographical  features  is  most  obvious. 
Ancient  religion  was  far  more  intimately  and  universally 
associated  with  social  and  family  life  than  is  the  case  with 
modem  European  nations.  Religion  had  made  and  ordered 
all  social  relationships.  The  individual  was  bound  in  the 
ties  of  religion  from  his  cradle  to  his  grave.  Every  act  of 
his  life,  good  or  bad,  joyous  or  mournful,  moral  (to  our  con- 
ceptions) or  immoral,  was  equally  presided  over  by  a  divinity, 
and,  as  it  were,  done  under  the  divine  sanction.  The  early 
religion  of  Anatolia  was  therefore  the  outcome  of  the  whole 
circumstances  and  environment  that  acted  on  the  people. 

One  feature  in  the  Anatolian  religion  rises  before  us  pro- 
minent and  impressive  at  the  first  glance.  The  ordinary 
and  familiar  idea  is  that  God  is  the  Father  of  all  mankind 
and  all  life.  Such  is  the  almost  universal  European  and 
Semitic  conception.  But  it  was  the  motherhood  of  the 
divine  nature  that  was  the  great  feature  in  the  Anatolian 
worship.^     The  male  element  in  the  divine  nature  was  recog- 

'  The  Religion  of  Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  p.  114  f.,  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of 
the  Bible,  vol.  v. 

^The  same  idea  is  widely  spread,  and  found  in  many  primitive  forms  of 
religion ;  but  on  this  subject  it  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  paper  to  enter. 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  131 

nised  only  as  an  occasional  and  subsidiary  actor  in  the  drama 
of  nature  and  of  life.  The  life  of  man  came  from  the  Great 
Mother ;  the  heroes  of  the  land  were  the  sons  of  the  goddess, 
and  at  death  they  returned  to  the  mother  who  bore  them. 

In  the  social  customs  of  Anatolia,  even  after  it  was  over- 
spread by  Greek  manners  and  Greek  ideas,  many  traces  re- 
main of  that  primitive  idea.  Descent  was  sometimes  reckoned 
through  the  mother;  women  magistrates  are  frequently 
found  even  in  the  Hellenised  cities  of  the  land.  And  in  its 
history  the  same  impression  remains :  it  is  everywhere  the 
most  pathetic  of  histories.  Not  vigour  and  initiative,  but 
receptivity  and  impressibility,  swayed  the  spirit  of  the  people, 
marked  their  fate,  and  breathed  through  the  atmosphere  that 
surrounded  them — a  continuous,  barely  perceptible  force 
acting  on  every  new  people,  and  subtly  influencing  every  new 
religion,  that  came  into  the  land.  For  example,  the  earliest 
known  trace  of  the  veneration  of  the  Virgin  Mary  in  the 
Christian  religion  is  in  a  Phrygian  inscription  of  the  second 
century ;  and  the  earliest  example  of  a  holy  place  consecrated 
to  the  Mother  of  God  as  already  an  almost  divine  personality 
is  at  Ephesus  early  in  the  fifth  century.^ 

On  the  great  level  plains  of  the  central  plateau  the  spirit  of 
man  seems  separated  from  the  world  by  the  mountains,  and 
thrown  back  on  its  own  nature ;  but  it  is  not  confined,  for  the 
idea  of  confinement  is  absolutely  alien  to  that  wide  expanse, 
where  the  sole  limit  to  the  range  of  the  human  eye  seems  to 
be  its  own  weakness  of  vision,  where  a  remote  mountain-peak 
only  emphasises  the  sense  of  vastness  because  it  furnishes  a 
standard  by  which  to  estimate  distance.  The  great  eye  of 
heaven,  unwearying,  unpitying,  inexorable,  watches  you  from 
its  rising  over  the  level  horizon  till  it  sinks  below  the  same 

'  This  subject  is  treated  more  fully  in  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  p.  125-159. 


132  III.  Asia  Minor. 


level  again.  There  is  a  sense  of  rest,  of  inevitable  acquies- 
cence in  the  Infinite,  all-pervasive  and  compelling  Power 
which  surrounds  you.  The  sense  of  individuality  and  per- 
sonal power  grows  weak  and  shrinks  away,  not  daring  to  show 
itself  in  the  human  consciousness.  The  phases  of  the  year 
co-operate  in  this  effect,  with  a  long  severe  winter  and  a  shorter 
but  hot  summer.  Where  water  pours  forth  in  one  of  the 
many  great  springs  which  give  birth  to  strong-flowing  rivers, 
the  country  is  a  garden ;  but  otherwise  the  fertile  soil  is  de- 
pendent entirely  on  the  chances  of  an  uncertain  rainfall.  The 
north  wind  tempers  the  heat,  and  the  harvester  trusts  to  it 
entirely  to  winnow  his  grain  on  the  threshing-floor.  Every- 
thing impresses  on  the  mind  the  utter  insignificance  of  man 
and  his  absolute  dependence  on  the  Divine  power.  The 
peasant  of  the  present  day  still — as  doubtless  his  remote 
ancestors  did  2,000  years  before  Christ — calls  almost  every 
great  life-giving  spring  Huda-verdi,  "  God  hath  given ". 

But  the  Divine  power  that  was  so  evident  was  not  the 
stern,  inexorable  power  of  the  hard  desert  The  people  saw 
the  nature  of  the  land,  rich  and  full  of  good  things  to  those 
who  accepted  the  divinely  revealed  method,  and  cared  for 
the  holy  soil  and  the  sacred  animals,  as  the  goddess,  their 
mother  and  patron,  required.  St.  Paul,  with  his  usual  un- 
erring insight  into  the  character  of  his  audience,  spoke  to  the 
rude  Lycaonian  peasants  about  the  God  "  who  did  good,  and 
gave  rain  from  heaven,  and  fruitful  seasons,  filling  the  heart 
with  food  and  gladness  ". 

For  the  student  of  that  country  and  history,  it  is  always 
and  everywhere  necessary  to  go  back  to  that  religion,  to  re- 
cognise it  as  the  originator  of  all  national  life  and  of  all  social 
forms,  and  as  a  continuous  force  acting  throughout  the  later 
development  of  the  country. 


The  Cozmtry  and  its  Religion  133 

In  the  exploration  of  the  city  of  Ephesus  an  example  may 
be  found  of  the  use  that  might  be  made  of  this  principle.  Mr. 
Wood  spent  six  years  searching  for  the  site  of  the  Temple 
of  Artemis,  and  at  last  he  found  it  exactly  where  it  ought  to 
be,  beside  the  little  hill  on  the  top  of  which  was  built  the 
great  church  of  St,  John  Theologos,  and  on  the  lowest  slope 
of  which  is  the  splendid  mosque  of  Isa  Bey.  The  church  was 
the  largest  built  by  the  Emperor  Justinian,^  that  greatest  of 
builders  with  the  single  exception  of  the  Emperor  Hadrian. 

The  historical  process  is  obvious,  since  Mr.  Wood's  dis- 
covery disclosed  it.  The  Christian  religion  when  it  became 
dominant  had  to  claim  for  itself  the  sanctity  attaching  to  the 
ancient  site.  It  did  so  by  building  that  great  church  overlook- 
ing the  temple.  But  Christianity  in  its  turn  gave  place  to 
Mohammedanism,  and  again  this  new  religion  made  itself 
heir  to  the  religious  associations  and  holiness  of  the  locality 
by  constructing  between  the  two  older  religious  sites  one  of 
the  largest  and  most  splendid  mosques  in  the  whole  country. 

The  history  of  Ephesus  is  an  extraordinary  series  of 
vicissitudes,  but  the  religious  centre  is  always  the  same. 
The  Greek  city  was  at  a  distance  from  the  religious  centre ; 
it  aimed  at  commercial  or  military  advantages,  and  its  site 
was  changed  more  than  once  as  the  sea-coast  receded.  The 
holy  place  was  the  governing  centre  of  the  plain  before  the 
Greeks  came ;  its  priests  watched  the  Greek  cities  grow  and 
change  and  decay.  The  outward  form  of  the  religion  was 
altered,  but  the  old  belief  was  not  extirpated,  and  it  took  new 
root  in  the  heart  of  the  conquering  religion,  so  that  in  the 
fifth  century  we  find  the  legend  of  the  Virgin  Mother  of  God 
firmly  established  among  the  Christians  of  Ephesus,  though 

1  St.  Sophia  in  Constantinople  was  larger ;  but  it  was  not  founded  by 
Justinian. 


134  III-  Asia  Minor: 

it  was  not  strong  enough  to  obliterate  the  historical  fact  that 
the  Holy  Theologian  had  lived  many  years  and  died  in  the 
city.  But  the  belief  in  the  old  holy  place  was  a  force  always 
attracting  the  population  thither,  and  growing  stronger  as  the 
standard  of  education  in  the  Eastern  Church  degenerated, 
and  at  last  proving  irresistible.  Thus  the  centre  of  popula- 
tion was  moved  back  to  the  old  centre  of  religion.  The  old 
Asiatic  paganism  had  proved  too  strong  alike  for  the  Greek 
trade  and  education  and  for  the  Christian  teaching.  The 
Greek  spirit  had  come,  and  lived  for  twelve  hundred  years, 
and  died  of  weakness,  but  the  old  beliefs  continued  as  strong  as 
ever.  The  old  goddess  had  not  merely  her  home  in  the  open 
plain  among  the  haunts  of  men  ;  she  was  the  goddess  of  wild 
nature  and  nursing  mother  of  all  wild  animals,  and  she  had  her 
other  home  among  the  mountains  on  the  south  of  the  plain. 
And  so  among  the  Christians  the  home  of  the  Virgin 
Mother  of  God  was  discovered  and  made  a  centre  of  worship 
and  pilgrimage  near  the  old  mountain  house  of  the  Goddess- 
Mother. 

An  apparent  exception  to  the  principle  that  the  great 
movements  of  history  and  thought  must  either  keep  to  the 
coast-lines  or  to  the  central  bridge,  and  that  no  great  move- 
ment on  the  central  plateau  ever  springs  from  the  northern  or 
the  southern  coast,  is  presented  by  the  enterprise  which 
carried  the  first  Christian  mission  from  Perga  on  the 
Pamphylian  coast  to  Pisidian  Antioch  and  the  neighbouring 
towns  on  the  central  bridge.  The  theologians  have  disputed, 
and  will  doubtless  dispute  to  the  end  of  time,  about  that 
sudden  transition  ;  but  the  geographer  and  the  historian  who 
study  facts  instead  of  starting  from  theories  can  never  hesitate 
as  to  this  great  fact.  The  first  mission  movement  began  to 
work  its  way  westward  along  the  sea-route  by  Cyprus  and  the 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  135 

Pamphylian  coast;  but  at  this  point  it  deserted  the  coast- 
route  and  transferred  itself  to  the  far  more  fruitful  and 
important  land-route  over  the  central  bridge.  The  impor- 
tant movements  of  thought  had  almost  always  taken  the  land- 
route,  for  the  coast-route  affords  only  narrow  and  limited 
opportunities  along  its  course.  It  was  easy  for  the  pioneers 
of  new  ideas  to  carry  them  by  sea  from  the  Syrian  shore  to 
Athens  or  to  Rome ;  but  by  the  way  they  as  a  rule  made  no 
impression  and  left  no  seed.  On  the  other  hand,  along  the 
land-route  new  religious  movements  worked  their  way  by 
conquering  the  cities  and  the  peoples  through  which  they 
passed  :  they  planted  themselves  firmly  at  each  stage,  and 
each  step  was  the  preparation  and  the  basis  for  a  further 
step. 

Of  the  many  movements  of  thought  that  have  occurred 
along  the  great  bridge,  the  only  one  which  can  be  traced  in 
any  detail  is  that  by  which  Christianity  was  diffused  over  the 
country  and  into  Europe ;  and  it  would  be  an  instructive 
example  of  the  principles  which  have  just  been  laid  down  to 
study  the  geographical  lines  of  that  important  movement. 
But  it  would  need  a  separate  article  to  do  so  even  in  the 
briefest  outline.  One  may  only  say  here  that  the  current 
conception,  which  indicates  the  spread  of  that  movement  by  a 
series  of  lines  radiating  from  Syria  across  Asia  Minor  to  the 
north,  north-west,  and  west,  is  entirely  incorrect.  The 
movement  of  thought  was  along  the  great  bridge,  by  the 
road  on  the  southern  side  of  the  plateau,  direct  west  from 
Syria  to  Ephesus,  and  then  back  again  in  return  waves  along 
the  north  coast  by  sea,  and  along  the  northern  roads  over  the 
plateau  by  land.  And  probably  the  older  movements,  about 
whose  diffusion  we  have  no  information,  exemplified  equally 
the  same  geographical  laws. 


136  III.  Asia  Minor: 

In  conclusion,  two  noteworthy  features  of  the  old  religion 
may  be  noticed  and  illustrated. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Divine  power  that  resided  in,  or 
brooded  over,  or  sat  in  state  upon  ^  prominent  peaks  and 
lofty  mountains  was  everywhere  an  object  of  popular  vener- 
ation. Elsewhere  the  writer  has  repeatedly  alluded  to  this 
subject,^  and  described  how  certain  striking  peaks,  which 
seem  to  dominate  the  landscape,  and  to  watch  over  and 
guide  and  measure  the  traveller's  course,  became  objects  of 
worship — partly  in  the  higher  view  as  abodes  or  seats  of 
the  Divine  might  (which  was  distinct  from  the  mountain,  a 
formless  guiding  power,  present  anywhere  and  everywhere 
to  its  worshippers),  partly  in  the  lower  view  as  themselves 
Divine  things,  Gods  to  be  worshipped.  The  two  views  were 
both  potentially  present  in  the  primitive  conception,  which 
had  not  yet  been  fully  thought  out ;  and  the  future  was  to 
determine  whether  the  early  conception  should  be  developed 
to  the  higher  stage  or  degraded  to  the  lower. 

Besides  the  evident  value  of  peaks  to  the  traveller's  and 
the  trader's  eye,  there  are  many  other  considerations  which 
must  have  given  importance  to  them.  Some  of  these  we  can 
trace  practically  in  the  Byzantine  time,  and  can  apply  with 
suitable  modifications  to  the  earliest  ages.  In  the  rude  war- 
fare of  the  Byzantine  period  it  must  be  observed  that  it  was 
no  longer  possible  or  safe  to  trust  to  the  kind  of  military 
strength  that  depended  on  artificial  fortifications,  on  well- 
trained  officers,  on  a  disciplined  and  obedient  soldiery,  and 
on  constant  watchfulness  and  forethought  in  the  highest 
ranks  of  the  service.  The  Byzantine  service  had  degenerated, 
and  was  not  kept  in  a  state  of  preparedness  and  good  discip- 

1  See  below,  p.  160,  and  Plate  XV. 

2  See  especially  the  Cities  of  St.  Paul,  p.  389,  and  Plates  XL,  XV. 


PLATE  XI. 


Rock-tomb  in  Phrygia  :  Roman  period  :  Christian  Arcosolia  of  later  period  in  the 

rock  beneath. 
To  face  p.  1^6.  See  p.  i^g. 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  137 

line.  The  Oriental  invaders  were  always  ill-organised,  and 
relied  mainly  on  sudden,  unexpected  attacks  on  a  peaceful 
country.  In  those  circumstances  it  was  inevitable  that  the 
old  Hellenistic  and  Roman  style  of  fortified  cities,  close  to 
the  roads  and  convenient  for  trade  and  administration,  should 
give  place  to  fortresses  perched  high  on  peaks  as  nearly  in- 
accessible as  possible.  These  were  safe  refuges  against  sud- 
den attack,  and  the  population  could  retreat  to  them  when 
beacons  on  peaks  beside  the  Eastern  roads  gave  warning 
that  a  raiding  army  was  crossing  the  Taurus.  They  could 
not  have  been  defended  against  a  long  regular  siege  owing 
to  deficiency  in  the  water-supply,  but  a  regular  siege  was 
not  to  be  feared  from  the  raiders  of  the  East. 

Thus  the  circumstances  of  the  great  war  against  Sassanian 
and  Arab  power  tended  inevitably  to  make  the  minds  of  the 
Anatolian  population  dwell  upon  the  importance  and  the  sav- 
ing power  of  lofty  peaks ;  while  their  religion  prompted  them 
to  plant  churches  and  monasteries  as  well  as  castles  on 
them,  and  led  them  first  to  wish,  thereafter  to  believe,  that 
the  saints  who  championed  and  marshalled  the  local  defence 
dwelt  permanently  on  these  high  hills.^  The  same  applies 
in  some  degree  to  the  earliest  times. 

As  examples  of  those  lofty,  fortified  rocks,  which  are  so 
numerous  in  Asia  Minor,  take  Plates  IV.  and  V.  In  the 
former  is  shown  the  rock  of  Kara-Hissar,  the  Black  For- 
tress,^ the  ancient  AkroSnos,  where  was  won  in  A.D.  739  the 
first  great  victory  in  a  pitched  battle  that  cheered  the 
Byzantine  Empire  in  the  task  of  repelling  the  Arab  con- 

^On  this  subject  see  the  following  paper,  "The  Orthodox  Church  in  the 
Byzantine  Empire  ". 

2 Kara  here  means  "black"  rather  in  the  moral  sense  of  terrible,  grim, 
strong,  than  as  the  colour. 


138  III.  Asia  Minor. 


querors.i  It  seems  to  have  been  known  afterwards  as 
Nikopolis,  the  City  of  Victory,  and  became  a  bishopric  in  the 
eighth  century.  It  is  now  one  of  the  chief  cities  of  the 
Plateau,  and  is  distinguished  from  many  other  towns  of  the 
same  name  by  the  epithet  Afion,  from  the  opium  which  is 
extensively  cultivated  in  the  plain  adjoining. 

Here  is  the  meeting  (not  allowed  at  present  to  be  prac- 
tically utilised  as  a  junction)  between  the  German  Railway 
from  the  Bosphorus  to  Konia,  and  perhaps  ultimately  to 
Bagdad,  and  the  French  Railway  from  Smyrna  to  Phila- 
delphia, Ushak  and  Kara-Hissar. 

Plate  V.  shows  the  city  now  called  Sivri-Hissar,  Pointed 
Fortress,  one  of  the  centres  of  the  angora-wool  trade,  the 
ancient  Justinianopolis,  one  of  the  great  fortresses  on  the 
Byzantine  Military  Road  by  which  Justinian  tried  to  protect 
the  land  of  Anatolia.  Its  double  peak  is  one  of  the  most 
noteworthy  points  for  surveyors  :  I  have  taken  readings  to  it 
from  very  distant  points  in  the  Phrygian  mountains  (one 
being  the  highest  point  of  the  Midas-city). 

In  the  second  place,  almost  every  seat  of  ancient  life 
carries  veneration  and  often  religious  awe  with  it :  frequently 
it  is  regarded  as  the  seat  of  Divine  power,  and  a  sacred 
place.  To  illustrate  this  in  detail  is  the  work  of  a  large 
book.  It  has  been  referred  to  briefly  in  a  paper  on  the  "  Per- 
manence of  Religious  Awe  in  Asia  Minor  ".^  Some  of  the 
annexed  Plates  may  serve  to  illustrate  it. 

Plate  VI.  shows  a  Roman  milestone  standing  in  its  ori- 
ginal position  on  the  great  Central  Trade  Route,  about  a  mile 
west  of  the  important  Roman  station  of  Psebila  or  Pegella 
(afterwards  renamed  Verinopolis  from  the  Empress  Verina 

^  Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Provinces,  p.  288. 
^Pauline  and  other  Studies,  p.  163  fT. 


The  Country  and  its  Religion  139 

in  the  end  of  the  fifth  century),  where  was  a  knot  of  five 
great  roads,  (i)  the  road  from  Constantinople,  Dorylaion  and 
Amorion,  (2)  the  Trade  Route  from  the  West,  (3)  the  road 
connecting  the  two  great  Galatian  provincial  centres  Ancyra 
and  Iconium,  (4)  the  Trade  Route  from  Caesarea  and  the 
East,  (5)  the  Syrian  road  through  the  Cilician  Gates. 

Plates  VII.-XI.  show  a  few  of  the  most  noteworthy  monu- 
ments of  Phrygia.  In  VII.  an  archaic  sheep,  once  used  as 
a  sepulchral  monument,  is  seen  :  a  pair  of  hunters  on  horse- 
back are  sculptured  on  the  side  of  the  unformed  mass,  and 
on  the  other  side  three  ibexes  of  a  species  still  common  in 
Anatolia.  The  custom  of  representing  animals  on  the  sides 
of  the  statues  of  other  animals  was  common  in  the  early 
Anatolian  or  "Hittite"  period.  The  human  figure  who 
stands  by,  dressed  in  early  November  as  for  the  Arctic  regions, 
affords  a  practical  proof  of  the  severity  of  the  climate  on 
the  Plateau.i 

The  Tomb  of  Midas  the  King  appears  in  Plate  VIII.,  the 
type  and  best  example  of  a  large  class  of  Phrygian  sepulchral 
monuments  (which  were  at  the  same  time  shrines  of  the 
deified  dead).  The  quaint  delicate  work  and  the  romantic 
surroundings  make  this  one  of  the  most  beautiful  monuments 
known  to  modern  times ;  and  its  historical  interest  even  sur- 
passes its  beauty.  The  two  inscriptions,  in  letters  of  gigantic 
size  and  archaic  Greek  form,  make  the  nature  of  the  monu- 
ment certain  ;  though  some  scholars  dispute  it 

Plate  IX.  gives  another  grave-monument  of  an  ancient 
Phrygian  chief,  without  inscription  and  probably  older  than 
the  introduction  of  Greek  writing  into  Phrygia.  The 
analogy  to  the  famous  Lion-Gate  at  Mycenae  lends  special 
interest  to  this  great  tomb.     Over  the  little  door  leading 

'  See  above,  p.  io6,  and  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  p.  385  {, 


140     III.  Asia  Minor:  The  Country  and  its  Religion 

into  the  plain  and  small  grave-chamber,  where  the  dead  was 
simply  laid  on  a  low  couch  of  rock,  stands  a  column  sup- 
porting a  very  heavy  architrave  at  the  top  of  the  rock.  Two 
lionesses  with  a  cub  beneath  each  rest  their  forepaws  on  the 
top  of  the  door. 

In  Plate  X.  the  broken  remains  of  an  even  greater  monu- 
ment, close  to  the  last,  are  seen.  The  head  of  the  lion  on 
the  left  measures  seven  feet  and  a  half  across.  It  is  exe- 
ecuted  in  singularly  life-like  vigorous  style,  and  the  com- 
plete monument,  with  three  great  heads  of  lions  like  this, 
must  have  been  wonderfully  effective.  The  town  or  village 
beside  it  was  in  the  fifth  century  and  later  called  from  this 
monument  Leontoskephalai.  It  is  about  six  hours  north  of 
Afion  -  Kara  -  Hissar  and  five  hours  south  of  the  Midas 
Tomb. 

Plate  XI.  shows  a  sepulchral  monument  of  the  Roman 
period,  in  quite  Greek  style.  The  family  tomb  is  here  con- 
ceived as  the  temple  of  the  deified  dead,  who  lay  in  chambers 
cut  in  the  rock.  Before  the  doors  is  the  portico,  supported 
by  two  Doric  columns,  closely  imitating  the  front  of  a  Greek 
temple. 

Plate  XII.  shows  the  site  of  the  ancient  Antioch  of 
Pisidia,  the  southern  capital  of  the  Province  Galatia,  with 
the  snowy  Sultan  Dagh  behind.  The  site  lies  in  the  middle 
distance,  on  the  left-hand  side  of  a  break  in  the  ridge  of  front 
hills.  Through  that  break  the  river  Anthios  flows  in  a  deep 
narrow  gorge,  close  under  the  city  walls.  The  ridge  con- 
tinues to  the  right  of  the  gorge,  rising  much  higher  than  on 
the  Antiochian  side.  The  faint,  hardly  distinguishable  re- 
mains contrast  with  the  numerous  buildings  of  Deghile 
(Plate  XIII.). 


IV. 


THE   ORTHODOX  CHURCH    IN  THE 
BYZANTINE  EMPIRE. 

ADDRESS  ON  BEHALF  OF  SECTION  VI.  (CHURCH  HISTORY)  ^ 

DELIVERED  TO  THE  FINAL  GENERAL  MEETING 

OF  THE  CONGRESS  OF  HISTORICAL 

SCIENCES,  BERLIN,  1908. 


IV. 

THE  ORTHODOX  CHURCH  IN  THE 
BYZANTINE  EMPIRE.^ 

I  WILL  not  fill  up  the  last  minutes  of  the  Congress  with 
minute  details  of  the  subject  about  which  I  have  to  speak. 
Rather,  I  shall  attempt  to  show  it  amid  its  surroundings  as 
one  aspect  of  the  immemorial  struggle  between  the  East 
and  the  West.  In  the  electric  contact  between  Asia  and 
Europe  has  been  generated  the  greatest  motive  power 
throughout  history ;  the  impulse  is  constantly  varying  in 
character  from  age  to  age,  yet  the  principle  is  fundamentally 
the  same. 

In  the  lands  of  the  Aegean  and  the  Levant  the  cardinal 
fact  of  history  has  always  been  and  is  now  the  struggle  of 
Hellenism  to  make  itself  dominant.  On  the  coasts  and 
islands  it  rules  almost  by  right  of  nature  ;  and  it  is  constantly 
striving  to  force  its  way  inland.  As  a  motive  force  in  the 
Levant  world  it  gained  strength  and  direction  by  being 
moulded  into  the  Roman  organisation ;  and  the  Roman 
Empire  was  in  the  East  the  Hellenic  Empire,  an  invigorated 
Hellenism,  which  lost  the  charm,  the  delicacy,  the  purity 
and  the  aloofness  of  the  unalloyed  Greek  spirit,  but  gained 
practical  and  penetrating  power. 

In  one  of  his  most  remarkable  papers,  written  in  later  life, 

1  Address  on  behalf  of  Section  VL  (Church  History)  delivered  to  the  final 
general  meeting  of  the  Congress  of  Historical  Sciences,  Berlin,  12th  August, 
1908.  It  was  shortened  in  delivery  by  the  omission  of  many  sentences 
or  clauses. 

(143) 


144  IV.   The  Orthodox  Church 

when  his  genius  and  historic  insight  were  brightest  and  most 
piercing,  because  they  were  guided  by  longer  experience  and 
by  a  width  of  knowledge  almost  beyond  the  right  of  man- 
kind, Mommsen  has  described  how  the  Roman  Empire,  at 
the  moment  when  it  seemed  no  longer  capable  of  maintaining 
itself,  was  restored  to  vigour  by  the  incorporation  of  a  new 
idea  into  its  constitution,  and  became  the  Christian  Empire. 
This  was  only  one  out  of  many  cases  in  which  by  a  single 
article  Mommsen  either  permanently  changed  thought  re- 
garding an  old  branch  of  study  or  created  an  entirely  new 
one.  He  has  made  it  impossible  for  any  scholar  ever 
again  to  say  much  of  what  used  to  be  repeated  parrot-like 
by  generation  after  generation  of  writers  about  the  relation 
of  the  Church  to  the  Roman  State, ^  and  he  has  made  it 
urgently  necessary  that  the  history  of  the  Roman  Empire 
should  be  rewritten  from  a  new  point  of  view. 

The  new  Christian  Empire  lasted  as  a  power  patent  to  the 
eyes  of  all  the  world  for  more  than  eleven  hundred  years. 
What  was  the  idea,  what  the  new  factor  in  organisation 
that  recreated  and  rejuvenated  the  dying  Roman  Empire? 
It  was  the  Church,  the  Church  as  an  organised  unity,  the 
Church  as  a  belief,  and  the  Church  as  a  body  of  ritual. 

In  this  connection  we  are  struck  with  a  certain  difference 
between  the  Latin  Church  and  the  Greek.  The  Latin 
Church  has  often  been  able  to  maintain  its  hold  on  discor- 
dant nations :  many  peoples  have  remained  faithful  to  the 
belief  and  the  authority  of  the  Roman  Church,  while  pre- 
serving  their    independence,    their    separation,    and    their 

^  Der  Religions/revel  nach  rom.  Recht.  The  legal  aspect  is  restated  in  his 
Strafrecht  from  a  different  point  of  view,  and  in  some  details  perhaps  more 
conectly;  but  the  older  paper  takes  a  far  wider  outlook  and  a  more  illumina- 
tive view  than  the  legal  book,  which,  though  published  later,  stands  nearer 
the  ordinary  point  of  survey,  because  it  is  narrower  in   its  range  of  interest. 


in  the  Byzantine  Empire  145 

mutual  hostility.  But  the  Latin  Church  could  not  hold  to- 
gether the  Western  Empire.  It  never  identified  itself  with 
the  Empire.  It  represented  a  higher  unity  than  the  Roman 
Empire:  so  far  as  it  lowered  itself  to  stand  on  the  same 
level  as  the  Empire,  it  was  a  rival  and  an  enemy  rather  than 
an  ally  of  the  Empire. 

But  the  Orthodox  Church  in  the  East  cast  in  its  lot  with 
the  Roman  Empire;  it  was  conterminous  with,  and  never 
permanently  wider  than  the  Empire.  It  did  not  long  at- 
tempt to  stand  on  a  higher  level  than  the  State  and  the 
people.  It  has  not  been  an  educating  and  elevating  and 
purifying  power.  It  has  been  content,  on  the  whole,  in  spite 
of  some  notable  and  honourable  exceptions,  to  accept  the 
world  as  it  was ;  and  it  has  been  too  easily  satisfied  with 
mere  allegiance  and  apparent  loyalty  to  the  State  among  all 
its  adherents.  It  was  the  faithful  ally  of  the  emperors.  In 
the  controversies  of  the  fifth  century  it  elected  to  side  with 
the  uneducated  masses  against  the  higher  thought ;  and  in 
an  QEcumenical  Council,  at  which  the  law  of  the  whole  Chris- 
tian world  should  be  determined,  it  admitted  to  its  delibera- 
tions a  bishop  who  could  not  sign  his  name  because  he  did 
not  know  letters.  But  on  this  lower  level  it  stood  closer  to 
the  mass  of  the  people.  It  lived  among  them.  It  moved 
the  common  average  man  with  more  penetrating  power 
than  a  loftier  religion  could  have  done.  Accordingly  the 
Orthodox  Church  was  fitted  to  be  the  soul  and  life  of  the 
Empire,  to  maintain  the  Imperial  unity,  to  give  form  and 
direction  to  every  manifestation  of  national  vigour. 

Practically  the  whole  of  Byzantine  art  that  has  lived  is 

ecclesiastical,  being  concerned  with  the  building  and   the 

adornment  of  churches,  and  of  the  residences  of  oflficials  in 

Church  and  State.     The  subjects  of  its  painting  became 

10 


146  IV.    The  Orthodox  Church 

more  and  more  exclusively  sacred.  Art  itself  was  frowned 
upon ;  and  the  controversy  between  Iconodouloi  and  Icono- 
clastai  was  to  a  certain  extent  a  contest  as  to  whether  Art 
should  not  be  expelled  even  from  churches.  Of  Byzantine 
literature,  if  you  take  away  what  is  directly  or  indirectly 
concerned  with  or  originating  out  of  the  Church,  how  little 
remains !  To  letters  the  Orthodox  Greek  Church  has  never 
been  very  favourable.  It  has  never  played  the  part  in  pre- 
serving the  ancient  classical  literature  that  the  Latin  Church 
has  played. 

Yet  it  has  always  clung  to  the  Hellenic  language  as 
tenaciously  as  it  has  allied  itself  with  the  Hellenised  Empire, 
to  which  it  had  given  new  life ;  but  it  did  so  rather  on  poli- 
tical and  social  and  religious  grounds  than  from  literary 
sympathy.  Greek  was  necessarily  the  language  of  Hellenic 
civilisation  and  order  ;  and  it  was  the  language  of  the  sacred 
books.  Accordingly  the  Church  destroyed  the  native  lan- 
guages of  Asia  Minor,^  and  imposed  the  Greek  speech  on  the 
entire  population,  though  it  could  not  do  this  completely  in 
Syria  or  in  Egypt.  As  it  identified  itself  with  the  Imperial 
rule  in  the  State,  so  it  identified  itself  with  Hellenism  as  a 
force  in  society  ;  but  its  Hellenism  was  a  degenerate  repre- 
sentative of  the  old  classical  Hellenism,  hardened  and  nar- 
rowed in  its  interests,  but  intense,  powerful,  strongly  alive, 
resolute  to  make  the  single  language,  the  Hellenic  speech, 
dominant  throughout  the  Church,  yet  able  in  the  last  resort, 
to  abandon  for  the  moment,  under  the  pressure  of  necessity, 
or  of  overpowering  national  feeling,  even  the  Hellenic  speech, 
and  to  leave  only  the  cultus  and  the  hierarchy  and  the  ritual 

1  That  Christianity,  and  not  the  older  Greek  or  Roman  civilisation,  destroyed 
the  native  languages  and  imposed  Greek  on  the  peoples  of  Asia  Minor,  has 
often  been  maintained  by  the  writer.  Professor  HoU  has  published  a  con- 
vincing argument  to  this  effect  in  Hermes,  1908,  p.  240  ff. 


in  the  Byzantine  Empire  147 

of  the  One  true  Church  as  the  sole  living  unity  in  the 
Empire. 

The  rise  of  every  national  movement  that  sought  to 
develop  itself  within  the  Empire  was  consecrated  and  vital- 
ised by  the  formation  of  a  new  Church.  In  some  cases,  as 
in  the  Armenian  schism,  or  in  the  severance  between  the 
two  great  sections  of  the  original  Catholic  and  Imperial 
Church,  viz.^  the  Latin  and  the  Greek,  there  was  some  dif- 
ference of  dogma,  of  creed,  or  of  ritual.  But  these  differ- 
ences were,  in  the  historian's  view,  not  the  essential  features 
in  the  quarrels  that  ensued  between  the  opposing  sections 
of  the  Church.  Those  differences  of  creed  were  only  the 
insignia  emblazoned  on  the  standards  of  forces  which  were 
already  arrayed  against  one  another  by  national  and  other 
deep-lying  causes  of  hostility.  Accordingly  in  the  severance 
between  Slavic  and  Hellenic  nationalities,  in  the  bitter  hatred 
that  has  often  raged  between  Slav  and  Hellene,  there  is 
practically  no  difference  of  creed  or  ritual ;  there  is  only  a 
difference  of  ecclesiastical  organisation.  The  separate  na- 
tionality formed  for  itself  a  separate  ecclesiastical  system, 
and  the  two  powers,  which  in  truth  represented  two  hostile 
races  and  two  different  systems  of  civilisation  and  thought 
and  ideals,  regarded  one  another  as  rival  Churches.  Where 
the  historian  sees  Hellenism  in  conflict  with  Slavic  society, 
the  combatants  hate  each  other  as  ecclesiastical  foes,  orthodox 
on  the  one  hand,  schismatic  on  the  other. 

Before  our  eyes,  in  this  present  generation,  there  has  oc- 
curred one  of  these  great  national  and  social  struggles,  a 
struggle  still  undetermined,  between  the  Bulgarian  and  the 
Hellenic  nationality.  When  the  Bulgarian  national  feeling 
was  growing  sufficiently  definite  to  take  separate  form  and 
to  disengage  itself  from  the  vague  formless  mass  of  the 


148  IV.    The  Orthodox  Church 

Christian  subjects  of  Turkey,  it  expressed  itself  first  by  de- 
manding and  in  the  year  1870  attaining  separate  ecclesiastical 
standing  as  the  Church  of  the  Exarchate.  Since  that  time 
the  war  to  determine  the  bounds  between  the  spheres  of 
Hellenism  and  of  Bulgarian  nationality  has  been  waged 
under  the  form  of  a  struggle  between  the  adherents  of  the 
Patriarchate  and  of  the  Exarchate.  We  at  a  distance  hardly 
comprehend  how  completely  the  ecclesiastical  question  over- 
powers all  else  in  the  popular  estimation.  It  is  not  blood, 
not  language,  that  determines  the  mind  of  the  masses ;  it  is 
religion  and  the  Church.  The  Bulgarian  born  and  bred, 
who  is  Mohammedan  by  religion,  sides  with  the  Turks  ;  the 
Bulgarian  who  is  of  the  Patriarchate  chooses  Hellenism,  and 
in  ordinary  course  (if  the  natural  tendency  of  history  is  not 
forcibly  disturbed)  his  descendants  will  ultimately  become 
Hellenes  in  language  also ;  only  in  the  Exarchate  is  the 
Bulgarian  nationality  supreme  and  lasting.  Religion  and 
the  Church  is  the  determining  principle  for  the  individual. 

In  the  islands  and  in  Asia  Minor  you  find  the  same  con- 
dition. The  Church  is  the  one  bond  to  hold  together  in 
feeling,  aspirations  and  patriotism  the  scattered  Hellenes. 
When  we  began  to  travel  in  the  country  thirty  years  ago, 
there  were  many  cities  and  villages  where  the  Orthodox 
Church  claimed  the  adherence  of  considerable  bodies  of 
population,  yet  where  the  Greek  language  was  neither 
spoken  nor  understood.  These  people  had  no  common 
blood  :  they  were  Isaurians,  or  Cappadocians,  or  Lycaonians, 
men  of  Pontus  or  Bithynia  or  Phrygia.  But  they  were  one 
people  in  virtue  of  their  one  Church ;  they  knew  themselves 
to  be  Hellenes,  because  they  belonged  to  the  Church  of  the 
Hellenes.  The  memory  of  their  past  lived  among  these 
Hellenes,  and  as  that  memory  grew  stronger  it  awoke  their 


in  the  Byzantine  Empire  149 

ancient  tongue  to  life  ;  and  now  their  children  all  speak  the 
language  of  the  Eastern  Roman  Empire,  and  look  forward 
to  the  reawakening  of  the  Christian^  unity  as  a  practical 
factor  in  the  development  of  the  country.  That  old  Roman 
Empire  is  not  dead,  but  sleeping.  It  will  die  only  when 
Hellenism  ceases  in  the  Aegean  lands,  and  when  the  Church 
is  no  longer  a  living  force  among  their  population. 

We  see,  then,  what  a  power  among  men  this  Orthodox 
Church  has  been  and  still  is — not  a  lovable  power,  not  a 
beneficent  power,  but  stern,  unchanging,  not  exactly  hostile 
to,  but  certainly  careless  of,  literature  and  art  and  civilisation) 
sufficient  for  itself,  self-contained  and  self-centred.  The 
historian  must  regard  with  interest  this  marvellous  pheno- 
menon, and  he  must  try  to  understand  it  as  it  appears  in  the 
centuries 

I  set  before  you  a  problem  and  a  question.  I  do  not  at- 
tempt to  answer  it  It  is  not  my  province  or  my  work  to 
propose  theories ;  but  to  ask  questions,  to  state  problems, 
and  to  observe  and  register  facts,  looking  at  them  in  the 
light  of  these  questions.  And  during  the  last  seven  years, 
it  has  fallen  to  my  lot  to  study  closely  the  monuments,  the 
hieratic  architecture  and  the  epitaphs  which  reveal  some- 
thing of  the  development  of  the  Orthodox  Church  in  the 
region  of  Lycaonia.  I  have  had  to  copy  many  hundreds  of 
Christian  inscriptions  ranging  from  the  gravestone  of  a 
bishop  of  the  third  century  to  an  epitaph  dated  under  the 
Seljuk  Turks  in  the  years  1160-1169.  It  would  be  pedantic 
and  impossible  on  this  occasion  to  attempt  even  an  outline 

1  It  is  the  only  "  Christian  "  Empire  to  the  Hellenes,  who  call  no  man 
Christian  unless  he  is  a  member  of  the  Orthodox  Church.  The  old  distinction 
between  Hellenes  and  Barbaroi  is  now  expressed  as  a  classification  into 
*'  Christians  "  or  Orthodox  and  all  others. 


150  IV.    The  Orthodox  Church 

of  the  results  which  follow  from  the  study  of  these  epitaphs, 
and  of  the  "  thousand-and-one  churches  "  ^  in  which  the  piety 
of  the  inhabitants  found  expression.  I  shall  restrict  myself 
to  a  few  general  statements,  taking  first  the  inscriptions  as 
beginning  earlier  than  the  oldest  surviving  church-building. 

The  inscriptions  are  almost  all  engraved  upon  the  tomb- 
stones of  the  ordinary  population  of  a  provincial  district. 
Even  the  bishops  who  are  mentioned  must,  as  a  rule,  be  re- 
garded as  mere  village-bishops  {^wpeiritrKonroC).  Similarly, 
the  ecclesiastical  buildings  belong  not  to  capitals  of  pro- 
vinces or  to  great  cities,  but  to  villages  and  unimportant 
towns,  where  there  was  little  education  but  a  high  standard 
of  material  comfort.  Those  of  which  I  to-day  speak  lie  in 
and  around  the  humble  and  almost  unknown  town  of  Barata. 
But  in  the  humbleness  of  its  range  lies  the  real  value  of  this 
evidence.  It) reveals  to  us  the  lower  and  the  middle  class  of 
society  ;  it  sets  before  us  the  commonplace  individuals  who 
composed  the  Imperial  State, 

The  epitaphs  help  to  fill  up  a  gap  in  the  information 
which  literary  authorities  furnish  about  the  Christian  Empire. 
Those  authorities  give  their  attention  to  emperors  and 
courtiers  and  generals,  to  the  capital  of  the  Empire  with  its 
mob  and  its  splendours,  to  bishops  and  church  leaders,  to 
CEcumenical  Councils  and  the  rise  of  heresies.  But  the  world 
is  made  up  of  ordinary,  commonplace  men.  The  leaders 
cannot  exist,  unless  there  is  a  people  to  be  led.  There  are 
indeed  scattered  about  in  the  literary  authorities  certain 
pieces  of  evidence  about  the  common  world  ;  and  there  are 
more  in  the  private  correspondence  of  writers  and  great  men. 

1  This  name  (Bin-Bir-Kilisse)  is  the  descriptive  appellation  given  by  out- 
aiders  to  the  modern  village  which  occupies  part  of  the  site  of  the  ancient 
Barata,  but  not  used  by  the  villagers  themselves  (who  call  their  home  Maden- 
Sheher). 


in  the  Byzantine  Empire  151 

But  this  evidence  has  never  been  collected.^  It  is  to  the 
humbler  epitaphs  that  we  must  look  for  aid  in  attempting 
to  estimate  the  influence  which  the  Church  exerted  on  the 
mass  of  the  people,  and  to  appreciate  the  standard  of  edu- 
cation and  life  which  it  produced  among  the  general  popula- 
tion, especially  in  small  towns  and  villages. 

The  Lycaonian  gravestones  will  give  at  least  the  begin- 
ning of  the  material  for  answering  the  questions  which  are 
thus  raised.  Though  a  few  of  the  epitaphs  are  earlier  and  a 
moderate  number  are  later,  yet  the  great  mass  of  them  belong 
to  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  (especially  the  period  A.D. 
330-450).  They  set  before  us,  on  the  whole,  the  Church  as 
it  was  in  Asia  Minor  from  the  time  of  Constantine  to  that 
of  Theodosius,  the  Church  of  Basil  of  Caesarea,  Gregory  of 
Nazianzus,  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  and  Amphilochius  of  Iconium 
— a  great  period  in  ecclesiastical  history.  I  am  convinced 
that  some  passages  in  the  literature  and  many  in  the  letters 
written  by  the  contemporary  leaders  of  the  Church  will 
acquire  a  new  and  fuller  meaning  and  more  living  realism 
through  comparison  with  these  memorials  of  their  humble 
followers. 

To  take  just  one  example.  When  Gregory  of  Nyssa 
wished  about  A.D.  380-390  to  build  a  memorial  chapel,  he 
wrote  to  Amphilochius  at  Iconium  begging  him  to  furnish 
workmen  capable  of  executing  the  work,  and  he  wrote  after- 
wards a  very  full  description  of  the  cruciform  church  which 
he  hoped  to  build.  We  have  now  abundant  evidence  that 
the  cruciform  was  in  those  regions  the  accepted  type  for 
memorial  churches.     We  find  in  the  country  subject  to  the 

1  In  a  paper  printed  in  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  pp.  369-406,  a  beginning 
is  made  in  a  small  way  to  exemplify  the  value  of  the  material  for  social  history 
in  the  letters  of  Basil.     See  also  Holl,  Hermes,  1908,  p.  240. 


152  IV.    The  Orthodox  Church 

metropolitan  bishop  of  Iconium  a  quite  unexpected  number 
of  churches  in  almost  every  form  known  to  Byzantine  archi- 
tecture. And  we  see  in  the  graves  throughout  the  country 
north  and  north-east  from  Iconium  a  marked  inferiority  in 
the  technique  of  sculptor  and  architect,  and  an  equally  marked 
superiority  throughout  the  hill-country  that  lies  near  Iconium 
on  the  south  and  south-west.  The  fashionable  type  of  orna- 
ment on  the  gravestones  of  this  latter  region  is  architectural, 
as  if  architecture  were  the  dominant  art  in  the  district.^  It 
was,  therefore,  natural  that  the  Bishop  of  Nyssa  should  have 
recourse  to  Iconium  for  artisans  able  to  build  and  to  adorn 
the  church  which  he  had  in  mind. 

The  picture  of  the  Lycaonian  Church  that  we  put  to- 
gether from  these  humble  memorials  is,  on  the  whole,  a  very 
favourable  one.  The  Church  was  still  the  educator  of  the 
people.  The  Presbyteros  is  set  before  us  in  simple,  striking 
terms  as  the  helper  of  the  orphan,  the  widow,  the  poor  and 
the  stranger.2  We  have  little  or  no  trace  of  alliance  with  the 
State  :  we  have  the  Church  of  the  people,  creator  of  charit- 
able and  hospitable  institutions,  the  Church  as  it  was  in  the 
mind  and  the  aspirations  of  Basil. 

We  find  Lycaonia  a  Christian  land  in  the  fourth  century.' 
It  is  the  one  province  of  Asia  Minor  whose  ecclesiastical 
organisation  can  be  traced  already  perfect  and  complete  in 
the  councils  of  the  fourth  century.  This  organisation,  there- 
fore, must  be  in  great  part  older  than  the  persecution  of 
Diocletian.  From  the  writings  of  Basil  of  Caesarea  we  learn 
that  as  early  as  A.D.  370  a  city  church  in  Cappadocia  was 

'On  the  Isaurian  masons  see  an  important  paper  by  Professor  Holl  m 
Hermes,  1908,  p.  242,  and  in  this  volume  XII.,  No.  10-12. 

*  See  below,  p.  352. 

'The  lew  pagan  inscriptions  of  the  period  belong,  some  certainly,  some 
probably,  to  the  engineered  anti-Christian  movement  under  Diocletian  and 
Maximin,  on  which  see  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  p.  106  flf. 


in  the  Byzantine  Empire  153 

already  regarded  as  only  one  part  of  a  great  surrounding 
complex  of  buildings  for  public  utility,  which  formed  a  centre 
for  social  and  public  convenience.  The  church  was  already 
fully  marked  as  the  focus  of  city  life. 

This  conception  of  the  church  building  in  its  relation  to 
the  life  of  the  city  is  much  older  than  Basil's  time.  It  is  the 
original  idea  of  the  early  Christian  world,  when  the  Universal 
Church,  in  competition  with  the  Emperor  and  Father  of  the 
State,  raised  its  claim  to  be  the  parent  and  guide  of  the 
people.  Such  a  Christian  ecclesiastical  establishment  took 
the  place  of  the  ancient  Anatolian  hieron  as  the  centre  of 
social  and  municipal  life.  The  Greek  conception  of  a  free 
people  governing  itself  without  priestly  interference  was 
dying  out,  and  the  Asiatic  conception  of  a  religion  govern- 
ing in  theocratic  fashion  the  entire  life  and  conduct  of  men 
was  reviving.  The  early  Christian  inscriptions  of  Lycaonia 
show  this  old  idea  as  it  affected  the  people  before  Basil. 

I  will  mention  here  only  one  inscription,  the  epitaph  of  a 
bishop  who  administered  the  see  of  Laodicea  about  A.D.  315 
to  340,  a  Roman  soldier,  with  the  Roman  triple  name,  a 
man  of  good  family  and  wealth  and  position  (like  so  many 
of  those  who  played  a  prominent  part^  in  the  history  of 
Christianity  in  Asia  Minor).  In  his  epitaph  he  tells  how  he 
rebuilt  the  church  of  the  city,  which  evidently  had  been 
destroyed  during  the  persecution  of  Diocletian.  The  bishop 
enumerates  the  whole  architectural  equipment  which  he  had 
built,^  and  which  he  evidently  considered  as  indispensable  in 
a  proper  ecclesiastical  establishment — "rebuilding  the  whole 
church  from  its  foundations  and  all  the  equipment  around  it, 

^  studies  in  the  History  and  Art  of  the  Eastern  Provinces,  p.  372  f. ;  PaultHe 
and  other  Studies,  p.  375. 

'^The  inscription  is  published  by  the  discoverer,  Mr.  Calder,  Christ  Church, 
Oxford,  in  the  Expositor,  November,  igo8.     See  below,  p.  339. 


i'54  IV.    The  Orthodox  Church 

viz.,  stoai  and  tetrastoa  and  paintings  and  screens  of  wood- 
work and  a  water-tank  and  an  entrance  gateway,  together 
with  all  the  mason-work,  and,  in  a  word,  putting  everything 
in  place ".  While  we  cannot  suppose  that  the  old  church, 
which  had  evidently  been  destroyed  to  the  ground  under 
Diocletian,  was  as  magnificent  in  its  equipment  as  the  new 
one,  we  can  safely  infer  from  this  document  that  the  same 
idea  of  a  social  as  well  as  a  religious  centre  had  been  em- 
bodied in  it  originally,  and  that  the  whole  establishment  was 
restored.  This  idea  is  apparently  presumed  in  the  inscrip- 
tion, as  natural  and  self-evident. 

Some  years  later  the  same  idea  was  embodied  in  Basil's 
great  foundation  at  Caesarea  of  Cappadocia — which  included 
an  almshouse,  a  place  of  entertainment  for  strangers,  both 
those  who  were  on  a  journey  and  those  who  required  medical 
treatment  on  account  of  sickness,  and  so  established  a  means 
of  giving  these  men  the  comfort  they  wanted — doctors, 
means  of  conveyance  and  escort.^  The  church,  which 
formed  part  of  this  establishment,  was  the  indispensable 
centre  for  the  whole  series  of  constructions. 

Even  the  cistern  or  water-tank  at  Laodicea  was  intended, 
not  as  a  baptistery  for  hieratic  purposes,  but  simply  to  afford 
a  supply  of  water  for  public  convenience :  this  is  proved  by 
the  cisterns  at  many  establishments  similar  in  character  but 
smaller  in  scale,  which  we  have  found  elsewhere  in  Lycaonia, 
In  that  waterless  region  a  permanent  water-supply  was  in- 
dispensable for  comfort;  and  as  running  water  can  very 
rarely  be  supplied,  a  tank  or  cistern  for  storage  was  used  in- 
stead of  the  fountain,  which  would  have  been  employed  in  a 
district  where  flowing  sources  were  abundant.  But  at 
Laodicea,  under  the  hills,  the  tank  held  running  water. 
1  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  p.  385  ;  Basil,  Epist.  xcvi. 


in  the  Byzantine  Empire  155 

Those  who  are  interested  to  trace  the  continuity  of 
religious  custom  will  not  fail  to  observe  that  the  "  Brother- 
hoods "  of  the  early  Turkish  time,^  and  the  Bektash  Dervish 
establishments  (which  have  lasted  down  to  the  present  day), 
fulfil  under  Mohammedan  forms  many  of  the  purposes  which 
Basil  aimed  at  in  his  great  foundation.  And  the  fountains 
in  the  courtyard  of  every  mosque  and  Dervish  tekke,  though 
primarily  intended  for  the  religious  ablution  before  prayer, 
are  used  for  general  purposes  of  public  utility.  If  we  could 
trace  the  character  of  the  ancient  Anatolian  hiera^  we  should 
probably  find  in  them  the  type  of  Basil's  establishment. 

As  to  the  surviving  church-buildings,  the  most  important 
among  many  remarkable  groups  is  a  series  which  we  had 
the  advantage  of  studying  and  excavating  in  company  with 
Miss  Bell  in  1907,  and  by  ourselves  in  1908  in  some  small 
supplementary  work — about  seventy  churches  in  and  around 
the  Lycaonian  city  of  Barata,  fifty  miles  south-east  of 
Ikonion,  and  subject  from  A.D.  372  onwards  to  the  metro- 
politan of  that  city.  These  churches  form  a  definite  group, 
possessing  a  certain  unity,  revealing  to  us  the  history  of  a 
small  Lycaonian  city  from  the  fifth  to  the  twelfth  century. 
The  memorials  of  city  life  were  no  longer  recorded  in  in- 
scriptions and  the  other  monuments  of  the  old  Greek  cities  : 
they  stand  before  us  in  the  churches  built  by  the  piety  or  the 
sense  of  public  duty  of  the  people,  often  by  the  piety  of 
individuals  similar  to  the  bishop  of  Laodicea. 

Churches  have  to  be  studied  by  historians  as  the  one 
form  in  which  the  public  spirit  and  patriotism  of  the  Byzan- 
tine cities  sought  expression.  The  Church  was  the  focus  of 
the  national  life,  and  the  ecclesiastical  buildings  mirrored  the 

*0n  these  Brotherhoods  see  the  CiUei  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  vol.  i., 
p.  96. 


156  IV.    The  Orthodox  Church 

fortunes  and  the  sufferings  of  the  people.  Such  buildings 
were  generally  constructed  as  the  payment  of  a  vow ;  and  in 
the  inscriptions  which  often  recorded  the  name  of  the 
builder  the  opening  formula  was  gradually  established, 
"through  the  vow  of  ...  " 

To  take  one  example :  the  outstanding  fact  with  regard 
to  the  Byzantine  Empire  as  a  whole  and  with  regard  especi- 
ally to  Asia  Minor,  is  that  they  were  exposed  to  the  full 
force  of  the  attack  which  the  barbarism  of  Asia  was  con- 
stantly making  on  the  Roman  Empire  and  the  Hellenic 
civilisation.^  The  Church  of  Anatolia,  if  we  rightly  estimate 
its  character,  could  not  remain  insensible  to  the  great  national 
struggle  against  the  Sassanian  and  Arab  invaders,  that  dread, 
ever-present  danger.  Accordingly,  we  find  that  one  of  the 
churches  at  Barata  was  the  memorion  of  a  citizen  who  "  died 
in  the  war,"  another  of  one  who  "  endured  many  wounds,"  and 
a  third  was  built  as  the  memorial  of  a  general  who  had  led 
the  Byzantine  armies :  his  name  is  not  given,  but  only  his 
position  in  the  Empire,  for  he  was  doubtless  the  only  native 
of  this  obscure  town  that  ever  attained  that  high  rank  in 
the  array,  and  hence  he  is  called  simply  "  the  Domestikos". 
The  largest  and  probably  the  most  magnificent  church  in 
the  town  was  decorated  with  paintings  executed  by  certain 
artists,  who  are  named,  under  the  direction  of  Indakos,  monk, 
presbyter  and  eponymous  tribune ;  and  a  fifth  church  was 
dedicated  according  to  the  vow  of  Mammas  the  tribune. 
When  we  see  that  churches  form  the  angle  of  the  fortifica- 
tions of  the  city,  that  monasteries  make  part  of  the  walls, 
that  a  small  church  crowns  many  a  little  hill  near  the  line  of 
the  walls  as  well  as  every  high  peak  of  the  mountains 
farther  away,  we  realise  that  the  Byzantine  Church  raar- 

*  Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Provinces,  p.  387. 


in  the  Byzantine  Empire  157 

«halled  and  inspired  the  Hellenes  of  the  later  Empire  to 
defend  Hellenism  against  barbarism,  and  that  the  tribunes 
who  built  those  churches  were  at  once  ecclesiastical,  muni- 
cipal and,  after  a  fashion,  military  officers. 

That  this  Church  militant  was  an  effective  military  leader 
cannot  for  a  moment  be  supposed.  There  was  a  vast  differ- 
ence between  the  military  orders  of  European  chivalry,  the 
Templars  or  the  Knights  of  St.  John,  and  these  monks  and 
tribunes  of  places  like  Barata.  But,  in  the  temporary  decay 
of  the  Eastern  Empire,  the  Church  did  undertake  the 
guidance  of  local  efforts  at  defence,  which  the  Emperors 
had  abandoned ;  and  thus  the  life  of  the  nation  came  to  be 
more  and  more  completely  summed  up  in  the  Church.  And 
when  the  Empire  revived  in  the  ninth  century,  it  could  not 
recover  the  hold  which  it  had  formerly  possessed  on  the 
national  loyalty.  The  Church  had  entirely  supplanted  it  in 
the  minds  of  the  people. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  too  much  disposed  to  think  that, 
because  the  regular  army  of  the  Empire  was  professional 
and  the  soldiers  of  the  later  Roman  period  were  almost  a 
caste  and  not  a  truly  national  army,  no  power  of  resistance 
and  self-defence  was  developed  in  the  districts  that  were 
most  exposed  to  Arab  attack.  But  the  churches  of  Barata 
tell  a  different  tale,  and  their  evidence  is  confirmed  at  a 
later  period  by  the  example  of  Philadelphia,^  which  main- 
tained itself  by  the  energy  of  its  own  citizens,  unaided  and 
even  disowned  by  the  Empire,  against  the  victorious  Turks 
for  a  century.  Where  the  people  had  the  army  to  depend 
on,  they  trusted  to  it ;  but  where,  as  in  Barata  and  Philadel- 
phia, they  were  left  open  to  the  constant  attacks  of  the 
enemy  without  military  protection,  they  trusted    to  them- 

^  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  pp.  400,  412. 


158  IV.    The  Orthodox  Church 


selves  and  the  Saints,  but  chiefly  the  Saints.  It  was  Michael 
commander  of  the  hosts  of  heaven,  and  the  other  Saints  on 
every  prominent  point  of  the  city  and  every  peak  of  the 
mountain,  who  marshalled  and  stimulated  the  defensive 
efforts  of  the  people  of  Barata.^ 

Here,  again,  we  see  how  close  the  Imperial  Church  stood 
to  the  life  of  the  people.  But  this  nearness  was  bought  at 
a  heavy  price,  and  much  of  the  character  of  the  Orthodox 
Church  was  sacrificed  to  attain  it.  If  we  take  the  succession 
of  the  ecclesiastical  buildings  at  Barata,  ranging  from  the 
fifth  to  the  tenth  or  the  eleventh  century,  we  can  trace  in 
them,  especially  through  their  dedications,  the  change  of 
feeling:  we  see  the  degeneration  of  the  Imperial  Church  to 
the  popular  level  of  thought  and  religion,  the  revival  of  the 
old  pagan  religion  of  Asia  Minor,  and  the  resuscitation  of 
the  ancient  gods  under  Christian  names. 

An  example,  the  most  striking  out  of  many,  occurs  on  the 
summit  of  the  mountain  that  overhangs  Barata  on  the  south. 
Standing  on  that  lofty  peak,  an  island  in  the  Lycaonian 
plain,  7,000  feet  above  sea  level,  one  remembers  the  ancient 
idea,  nowhere  stronger  than  in  Anatolia,  that  all  lofty  peaks 
were  the  chosen  home  of  Divine  power,  and  feels  certain  that 
this  was  a  "  High  Place  "  of  the  old  paganism.  The  proof 
is  at  hand.  Although  in  the  change  of  religion  the  old 
sanctuary  has  been  destroyed,  and  a  monasteiy,  a  church  and 
a  memorial  chapel  (which  bears  the  name  of  Leo)  cover 
almost  the  entire  summit,  and  conceal  the  earlier  features  of 
the  place,  yet  the  traces  of  the  original  "  High  Place  "  are 
not  entirely  obliterated. 

>  On  the  circumstances  and  needs  of  local  defence  which  tended  to  encourage 
among  the  people  this  belief  in  the  saving  power  of  high  peaks  and  the  abode 
•of  their  Saints  and  champions  on  high  hills,  see  above,  p.  136. 


PLATE  XIV. 


r 

miF 

•; 

••^/^' 

fc__^ 

^...      X.A-«>te»L„.-.i.^^.l:^.-. 

- 

Church  and  Memorial  Chapel  of  Leo  on  the  Summit  ot  the  Kara-Dagh. 
PLATE  XV. 


Church  on  the  Summit  of  the  Kara-Dagh :  Apse  and  South-east  Corner. 
To  face  p.  158. 


in  the  Byzantine  Empire  159 

In  the  rocks  that  support  the  church  on  the  north  side  is  a 
passage,  partly  natural,  partly  artificial,  now  to  some  extent 
narrowed  by  walls  of  the  Byzantine  period.  On  the  rock 
•walls  of  this  passage,  perhaps  formerly  hidden  by  Byzantine 
building,  are  two  inscriptions  in  the  ancient  hieroglyphics, 
which  are  now  generally  called  Hittite,  but  which  were  pro- 
bably Anatolian  in  origin.  These  put  the  ancient  holy 
character  of  the  locality  beyond  all  question.  We  have  here 
the  first  known  example  of  a  Hittite  "  High  Place  "  not  en- 
tirely destroyed ;  and  we  see  that  its  ancient  sanctity  was 
preserved  in  a  Christianised  form  by  the  Byzantine  Church. 

This  group  of  monuments,  discovered  by  Miss  Gertrude 
Bell  in  May,  1907,  after  so  many  ti'avellers  had  visited  this 
ancient  city,  is  one  of  the  best  known  examples  of  the  general 
principle  which  has  often  been  stated — that  religious  awe  in 
Anatolia  clung  permanently  to  the  same  localities.^  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  church  and  monastery  were  placed 
here  because  of  the  old  sacred  character.  The  new  religion 
was  obliged  to  satisfy  the  religious  instincts  of  the  popula- 
tion, which  reverenced  this  ancient  seat  of  worship.  The 
church  and  monastery  have  every  appearance  of  being  com- 
paratively early :  at  latest  the  sixth  century  is  the  date  to 
which  they  should  be  assigned.  The  Byzantine  type  of 
architecture  with  dome  standing  within  a  square  tower  was 
already  fully  developed  when  the  church  was  built ;  hence 
one  would  not  be  able  to  date  the  foundation  too  early. 

The  series  of  monuments  on  the  highest  summit  of  the 
mountain  would,  even  if  they  stood  alone,  furnish  a  complete 
proof  of  the  very  early  origin  of  civilisation  at  this  site. 
But  it  was  our  good  fortune  to  find  a  second  almost  more 
striking  confirmation  of  the  Hittite  occupation.  On  the 
'  See  especially  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  p.  163  ff. 


i6o  IV.    The  Orthodox  Church 

north-west  side  an  outlying  hill,  called  Kizil  Dagh,  about 
eight  miles  from  the  city,  was  made  into  a  fortress  to  defend 
the  approach  to  the  central  city.  The  early  Anatolian  or 
Hittite  character  of  this  fortress  is  shown  by  its  style,  and  by 
three  hieroglyphic  inscriptions,  one  on  a  sort  of  altar  at  a 
gate  in  the  west  wall,  and  two  on  a  "  Holy  Place,"  a  pinnacle 
of  rock  forty  feet  high,  roughly  carved  into  the  shape  of  a 
seat  or  throne  with  high  back,  below  the  west  wall  of  the 
fort.  On  the  throne  is  incised  a  figure  of  the  god,  sitting, 
holding  a  sceptre  in  the  left  hand  and  a  cup  in  the  right.^ 
He  wears  magnificent  robes  and  rests  his  feet  on  a  footstool. 
He  is  the  god  who  presides  over  and  guards  the  city  of  the 
mountain,  with  its  bounteous  vineyards,  its  fruit  trees,  its 
riches,  and  its  cool,  delightful  climate  in  summer.  The  dis- 
covery of  this  throne  would  have  gladdened  the  heart  of  a 
scholar,  who  died  too  young  (the  late  Dr.  Reichel),  who  wrote 
from  very  slender  materials  a  most  suggestive  paper  on  the 
importance  of  the  throne  in  early  Anatolian  religion.  Since 
his  death  his  views  have  been  confirmed  by  the  discovery  of 
several  monuments  which  prove  that  a  throne  played  a  very 
important  part  in  the  equipment  of  the  primitive  cultus  in 
Anatolia.  This  "  High  Place "  remains  unharmed  by  any 
destroying  hand,  except  that  of  time  and  weather.  Its 
ancient  sanctity  was  forgotten  by  the  Orthodox  Church; 
and  the  features  of  the  locality  are  unchanged  since  it  was 
the  place  of  worship  for  the  garrison  of  the  old  fortress. 

The  name  of  the  same  priest-king,  Tarkuattes,  appears  in 
the  inscriptions  on  both  these  Hittite  sites,  as  Professor 
Sayce  informs  me.     This  priest-king  must  have  been    the 

*  Professor  Sayce  tells  me  that  he  interprets  differently  the  symbol  which 
I  took  for  a  cup ;  but  this  is  immaterial  for  our  present  purpose.  He  regards 
the  seated  figure  as  that  of  the  priest-king ;  but  in  that  case,  according  to  the 
usual  practice,  the  priest  wears  the  dress  and  plays  the  part  of  the  god. 


PLATE   XVI. 


The  Throne  of  the  Anatolian  God:  with  Two  Hieroglyphic  Inscriptions  and  a  Relief. 

PLATE   XVIL 


Church  No.  29  at  Bin-Bir-Kilisse :  Double-arched  West  Doorway  seen  from  the  inside : 

on  the  left  is  the  Wall  of  the  South  Chamber  of  Narthex. 
To  face  p.  160. 


in  the  Byzantine  Empire  i6i 

dynast  either  of  Barata  or  of  some  remoter  city  to  which 
Barata  was  subject,  and  the  former  seems  far  the  more  pro- 
bable supposition. 

We  observe  three  periods  in  the  development  of  the 
churches  of  Barata  and  the  vicinity.  During  the  fifth  to  the 
seventh  century,  we  have  churches  in  the  lower  city,  and  a 
group  of  monasteries  high  on  the  hills  above  the  city.  From 
A.D.  700-850  we  trace  the  destruction  of  the  lower  city  by 
the  Arabs,  and  the  formation  of  the  principal  group  of 
monasteries  into  a  fortified  town.  Between  850  and  1070 
occurred  the  revival  of  the  lower  city,  as  the  Arabs  were 
repelled  and  the  danger  which  had  driven  the  people  of 
Barata  into  the  safe  obscurity  of  the  mountains  diminished 
and  came  to  an  end.  Then  the  people  began  to  rebuild  in 
the  lower  ground  the  ancient  city,  which  now  lies  a  ruined 
town  of  the  period  850-1070.  Several  of  the  largest  churches 
which  had  fallen  into  ruins  were  then  restored  and  remodelled  ; 
and  it  is  still  possible  to  trace  the  changes  which  were  made 
in  order  to  repair  as  quickly  as  possible  the  shell  of  the  old 
buildings.  Some  of  the  smaller  churches  perhaps  remained 
standing,  having  survived  the  destruction  wrought  by  the 
Arabs  and  perhaps  by  earthquakes.  But  the  majority  of  the 
churches  which  the  traveller  surveys  were  probably  built 
from  the  foundations  in  the  ninth  or  tenth  century.  The 
city  was  now  of  smaller  extent,  and  at  least  one  church 
seems  to  have  been  left  unrepaired  on  the  western  side  of 
the  town. 

A  deterioration  in  the  builder's  art  is  now  manifest.  The 
churches  were  built  on  good  old  plans ;  but  the  work  was 
carried  out  rudely  and  probably  in  great  haste  ;  yet  the  haste 
is  rather  that  of  carelessness  than  of  urgent  need.  There 
are  no  signs  of  loving  desire  to  make  the  work  as  good  and 

II 


i62  IV.   The  Orthodox  Church 

rich  as  possible.  We  cannot,  indeed,  say  how  far  colour  may- 
have  been  employed  to  supplement  the  strictly  architectural 
work ;  but  the  style  is  indisputably  rather  mean  in  character. 
The  late  churches  produce  the  general  impression  of  a  de- 
generating people,  a  dying  civilisation,  an  epoch  of  ignorance, 
and  an  Empire  going  to  ruin. 

Yet,  with  all  their  faults,  even  these  late  buildings  retain 
for  the  most  part  a  certain  dignity  and  an  effective  simplicity. 
The  tradition  of  the  old  Byzantine  architecture  was  preserved 
in  this  sequestered  nook,  so  long  as  the  Imperial  government 
maintained  itself.  It  was  only  when  the  Empire  shrank  to 
narrower  limits,  and  Lycaonia  was  left  to  the  Turks,  that 
the  dignity  of  the  Imperial  Church  was  lost,  and  its  places 
of  worship  show  themselves  plainly  to  be  the  meeting- 
places  of  a  servile  population. 

What  was  good  in  the  late  architecture  was  traditional, 
surviving  from  an  older  time.  What  was  bad  in  it  was 
contributed  by  the  age  when  the  work  was  executed.  The 
decay  of  true  architectural  feeling  corresponded  to  decay  in 
the  civilisation  of  the  period.  The  people  were  dominated 
by  ecclesiastical  interests.  Monasteries  multiplied  all  over 
the  mountain ;  and  much  of  the  land  must  have  belonged 
to  these  foundations,  and  so  been  withdrawn  from  the  service 
of  the  State.  Patriotism  could  not  survive  in  such  an  atmo- 
sphere; and  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  the  Imperial 
g-ovemment  either  tried  or  deserved  to  rouse  a  national  and 
loyal  spirit,  for  it  was  becoming  steadily  more  oriental,  more 
despotic  and  more  rigid.  But  the  major  part  of  the  blame 
for  the  national  decay  must  be  laid  on  the  Orthodox  Church. 
The  nation  had  been  delivered  over  to  its  care.  It  had 
long  been  supreme  and  its  authority  unquestioned.  The 
result  was  that  art  and  learning  and  education  were  dead, 


in  the  Byzantine  Empire  163 

and  the  monasteries  were  left.  The  Orthodox  Church  had 
allied  itself  with  autocracy  against  the  people,  and  with  the 
superstitious  mob  against  the  heretics  and  the  thinkers.  Its 
triumph  meant  the  ruin  of  the  nation  and  the  degradation 
of  higher  morality  and  intellect  and  Christianity  and  art. 
In  our  excavations,  never  deep,  we  never  found  any  article 
worth  picking  up  off  the  ground. 

The  city  lived  on  its  past.  All  that  was  good  in  it  was 
inherited.  The  mountains  of  Barata,  now  called  Kara-Dagh, 
the  Black-Mountain,  must  have  been  in  ancient  time  the 
summer  sanatorium  of  the  Lycaonian  plain.  Owing  to  their 
height  the  climate  is  delightful.  The  soil  is  very  fertile, 
and,  being  volcanic,  is  specially  suited  for  vines.  Many 
kinds  of  fruit  trees  also  were  cultivated.  Water  is  not 
plentiful,  but  there  are  several  springs  of  remarkably  good 
water.  The  needs  of  agriculture  and  viticulture  were  met 
by  a  wonderfully  elaborate  system  of  storing  the  rain  and 
the  melted  snows  of  winter.  The  mountain  had  been  won 
for  the  use  of  man  by  long  labour  and  by  great  skill. ^  The 
inheritance  from  past  civilisation,  the  traditional  agriculture 
and  industry,  was  preserved  just  so  far  as  to  maintain  the 
works  of  former  time;  and  a  high  standard  of  material 
comfort  still  reigned  in  the  mountain.  The  delightful  air 
could  not  be  ruined.  The  water  supply,  bountifully  provided 
in  early  time,  was  cared  for  and  maintained  in  good  order. 
The  vines  grew  generously  on  the  volcanic  soil  of  the  hill- 
sides. Whatever  else  failed,  the  wine-presses,  which  we 
found  in  numbers,  were  still  trodden,  the  harvests  were  still 
reaped,  and  the  fruit  still  gathered  from  the  trees. 

The  site  of  this  ancient  city  is  now  the  most  inhospitable 
to  travellers  in  the  whole  of  Lycaonia.  There  is  no  water 
1  On  this  subject  see  the  following  paper. 


164  IV.    The  Orthodox  Church 

except  filthy  half-poisonous  puddles  stored  in  the  ancient 
cisterns,  and  he  who  drinks  runs  the  risk  of  death.  The 
vines  have  almost  entirely  disappeared,  the  orchards  remain 
only  in  a  few  trees  run  wild.  There  is  hardly  any  cultiva- 
tion. The  water  runs  rapidly  off  the  steep  slopes  of  the 
mountain,  and  is  of  no  benefit  to  agriculture  except  in  the 
lowest  part  of  the  little  sheltered  valley  where  the  city  was 
built.  The  wealth,  the  abundance  of  crops,  the  fertility  of 
th,e  soil,  the  vines  that  grew  rich  on  the  sides  of  these  vol- 
canic hills,  the  water  stored  up  by  a  series  of  dams  in  every 
ravine  and  channel,  the  drinking  water  brought  to  the  city 
from  fountains  at  a  distance — all  these  were  produced  by  the 
labour  of  men,  guided  and  ordered  by  the  wisdom  of  the 
Divine  power.  It  was  not  through  the  high  education  of  the 
individual  that  those  great  results  in  engineering  and  agri- 
culture and  the  use  of  the  earth  generally  were  gained.  It 
was  through  the  guiding  power  of  their  religioa  The 
Goddess  herself,  the  Mother  Earth,  taught  her  children ;  as 
she  gave  them  birth  and  life  and  nourishment,  so  she  showed 
them  how  to  use  the  things  that  she  tendered  to  the  use  of 
man.  The  religion  was  agricultural  and  economic  ;  and  its 
rules  and  practices  were  the  annual  cycle  of  events  in  the 
industrial  year.^ 

In  this  way  that  ancient  religion  acquired  an  extraordinarily 
strong  hold  on  the  simple  minds  of  a  little-educated  popula- 
tion. In  their  religion  lay  their  sole  education  ;  but  it  pre- 
scribed to  them  all  the  wisdom  and  the  conduct  that  they 
needed  for  a  prosperous  agricultural  life.  The  hold  which  it 
possessed  on  their  minds  lasted  through  the  centuries  that 
followed,  when  new  rulers  and  strange  religions  became 
dominant  in  the  land.     The  old  holy   places,  perhaps  also 

'On  this  see  the  following  paper. 


Church  No.  32  at  Deghile,  looking  from  S.E. :  North  Arcades  of  the  Nave :  Chamber, 
South  Extension  of  Narthex,  on  the  left :  Monastery  Halls  behind  on  left. 


PLATE  XX. 


Church  No.  5  at  Bin-Bir-Kilisse,  Apse  and  South  Arcades  of  the  Nave. 
To  face  p.  164.  See  pp.  155-161. 


in  the  Byzantine  Empire  165 

the  old  religious  customs  to  some  extent,  imposed  themselves 
on  the  Christians  of  the  Byzantine  time  ;  and  it  is  not  easy 
to  see  any  great  or  deep  difference  between  the  Byzantine 
saints  and  the  Divine  figures  who  surrounded  the  principal 
deity  in  the  early  religion. 

Such  was  the  heritage  which  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  Chris- 
tian population  of  Barata.  They  were  heirs  to  a  prosperity 
gained  by  industry  and  knowledge  and  science.  They  were 
heirs  also  to  a  religious  belief  deep  engrained  in  their  hearts 
through  generations,  a  reverence  for  the  religion  to  whose 
teaching  they  owed  the  beginning  and  the  foundations  of 
their  prosperity :  they  owed  to  it  also  the  conservation  of 
their  prosperity,  for  those  numerous  engineering  works  had 
to  be  kept  in  good  repair,  and  we  must  suppose  that  this 
duty  also  was  part  of  the  ritual  of  the  early  religion.  The 
deity  who  taught  them  became  an  inalienable  part  of  the 
national  mind  and  temperament ;  and  the  Christians  could 
not  get  free  from  their  heritage  of  belief  and  reverence,^  nor 
would  it  have  been  right  to  force  them  to  throw  off  all  their 
inherited  ideas,  fixed  in  their  nature  through  countless 
generations. 

When  the  churches  and  the  epitaphs  engraved  on  many  of 
them  are  regarded  in  chronological  order,  it  is  apparent  that 
they  show  a  reversion  to  the  simplest  ancient  belief  about 
the  grave.  Just  as  the  ancient  grave  was  a  temple,  the  home 
of  the  dead,  who  is  a  god  identified  with  and  partly  merged 
in  the  supreme  deity,  so  in  this  late  Christian  period  the 
church  is,  so  to  say,  the  sepulchral  monument.  The  one 
great  religious  duty,  alike  in  this  late  time  and  in  the  oldest 
period,  was  to  prepare  a  grave,  and  the  grave  was  a  sanctuary. 
No  trace  remained,  so  far  as  we  can  observe,  of  the  idea  that 

^  See  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  p.  136  if. 


1 66  IV.    The  Orthodox  Church 

the  church  was  a  place  of  instruction  in  moral  duty  and  re- 
ligious thought ;  the  church  was  in  itself  holy,  and  it  was  a 
duty  supreme  above  every  other — so  far  as  remains  show — 
to  build  a  grave-church. 

The  history  of  this  city  thus  seems  to  end  where  it  began  ; 
and  yet  through  all  the  degradation  the  Orthodox  Church  is 
not  dead.     It  still  maintains  the  Hellenic  unity. 

The  Imperial  Church  lives,  and  while  it  lives  the  Imperial 
unity  is  not  dead,  but  only  asleep.  It  is  like  the  old  German 
Kaiser  Barbarossa,  who  led  his  army  of  the  great  Crusade 
from  the  Hellespont  to  Cilicia,  triumphing  over  every  diffi- 
culty with  marvellous  skill  and  tenacity  of  purpose,  to  disap- 
pear from  the  eyes  of  men  in  the  waters  of  the  Calycadnos : 
but  the  creative  imagination  of  popular  belief  knew  that  he 
is  not  dead,  that  he  waits  the  moment  and  the  signal  to  re- 
appear among  men.  So  it  is  with  Hellenism  as  a  world- 
power.  It  may  revive :  the  Church  has  always  to  be 
reckoned  with  as  a  possibility  in  the  future.  Asia  has  in 
store  as  great  issues  and  as  great  surprises  for  the  western 
world  in  the  future  as  she  has  often  produced  in  the  past. 

And  since  I  have  mentioned  the  Kaiser  of  romance  and 
the  Crusade  that  he  led  across  Asia  Minor,  I  may  venture, 
in  the  last  words  addressed  to  the  Historical  Congress  in  the 
German  Capital,  to  recall  the  new  German  Crusade  which  is 
conducting  another  march  across  the  same  land.  It  is  no 
more  an  army  of  mail-clad  warriors.  It  is  an  army  of  en- 
gineers and  workmen.  At  Dorylaion,  where  the  first 
Crusade  fought  its  first  great  battle,  at  Ikonion,  where  Bar- 
barossa gained  his  greatest  victory,  you  find  now  large  German 
workshops  and  German  hotels.  This  new  Crusade  moves 
more  slowly  than  the  army  of  Barbarossa  ;  but  it  moves  more 
surely.    It  has  surmounted  difficulties  as  great  as  those  wliich 


in  the  Byzantine  Empire  167 

Kaiser  Friederich  met.  It  has  yet  other  even  greater  diffi- 
culties to  encounter.  It  has  to  accommodate  its  organisation 
to  the  people  of  the  land,  and  give  form  to  itself  as  part  of 
the  national  resources. 

The  historian  must  regard  with  the  keenest  attention  this 
great  historical  development.  He  must  admire  the  fore- 
thought and  the  patient  tenacity  with  which  every  obstacle  is 
provided  for  and  overcome,  and  he  watches  with  interest  how 
the  arrangement  with  the  Orthodox  Church  and  the  power 
of  the  new  Hellenism  will  be  concluded.  For  myself,  as  I 
have  loved  on  many  journeys  to  trace  step  by  step  the  vic- 
torious march  of  the  old  German  Kaiser,  and  as  1  have  with 
keenest  interest  and  growing  admiration  watched  every  stage 
from  the  beginning  of  this  new  Crusade,  so  I  look  forward 
to  obsei-ving  on  what  terms  and  in  what  spirit  the  new  Cru- 
saders will  meet — as  they  must  inevitably  at  some  time  meet 
— the  force  of  the  old  Imperial  Church. 

Note. — I  take  this  opportunity  of  supplying  an  omis- 
sion in  my  Cities  of  St.  Paul,  due  to  lapse  of  memory  in 
finishing  the  book  amid  the  many  pressing  duties  in  the 
opening  month  of  University  classes,  October,  1907. 

On  the  native  religion  ot  Lystra  the  published  monuments 
throw  no  light.  They  refer  only  to  the  religion  of  the 
Roman  Colonia,  mentioning  the  worship  of  Ares  and  of  the 
Emperor.  Fig.  5,  p.  216,  sets  before  us  one  aspect  of  the 
native  religion.  It  is  a  very  small  relief,  about  eighteen 
inches  high  ;  the  surface  is  much  broken,  and  the  work,  even 
if  it  had  been  well  preserved,  is  of  the  rudest  character. 
Photographs  of  the  worn  flat  surface  taken  in  1901  and 
1907  are  too  faint  for  reproduction.  The  stone  sets  before 
us  the  local  god,  protector  of  the  flocks,  which  must  have 
been   a   chief  source   of  the   city's   prosperity.     The  river 


1 68  IV.    The  Orthodox  Church 

valleys  beside  the  city  are  rich  arable  land,  but  most  of  the 
territory  consists  of  low  undulating  hilly  ground  suited  for 
pasturage.  There  is  therefore  a  sheep  beside  the  platform 
on  which  the  god  stands.  He  is  marked  by  the  lustral 
branch  in  his  right  hand  as  tlie  god  of  purification — an  im- 
portant and  constant  feature  of  the  Anatolian  god.  His 
left  hand  reaches  down  towards  an  altar  in  the  shape  of  a 
table  (compare  the  shape  of  the  Hittite  Lycaonian  altar, 
frontispiece  to  my  Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Eastern 
Provinces);  but  this  part  is  so  broken  that  the  action  is 
uncertain.  The  nature  of  the  Anatolian  god,  as  revealer  to 
men  of  the  ritual  that  should  be  observed  on  his  own  altar, 
is  described  in  the  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  p.  64. 

The  inscription  states  the  name  of  the  god  and  the  oc- 
casion of  the  dedication.  It  began  with  the  word  "con- 
secrated," now  lost.  "  [Aur.  ?]  Neon  C  ....  onianos,  son  of 
Dionysius,  [consecrated]  the  (statue  of)  Apollo  to  the  Tribe 
(called)  Holy  Thiasos,  a  vow  ". 

The  Thiasos  was  the  company  of  worshippers  of  the  god ; 
and  the  fact  that  it  was  one  of  the  city  Tribes  is  highly  im- 
portant. It  was,  doubtless,  a  Tribe  large  in  numbers,  in- 
cluding most  of  the  native  population.  The  dedicator  bears 
a  Hellenic  (perhaps  also  a  Roman)  name,  and  he  applies  a 
Hellenic  name  to  the  god.  He  therefore  belonged  to  the 
Hellenes,  who  were  a  part  of  the  Lystran  population  (as,  e.g.^ 
Timothy's  father).  The  god  is  here  assimilated  to  Apollo 
as  the  sheep  god,  and  the  god  of  purification  ;  but  the 
identification  with  Zeus  as  the  supreme  god  was  equally 
suitable.  A  similar  conception  of  the  divine  nature  on  the 
plateau  of  Asia  Minor  is  elsewhere  called  Zeus  Galaktinos, 
the  milk-god.     He  is  the  Zeus-before-the-city  of  Lystra. 


V. 

THE  PEASANT  GOD: 

THE  CREATION,  DESTRUCTION  AND  RESTORATION  OF 

AGRICULTURE  IN  ASIA  MINOR. 


V. 

THE  PEASANT  GOD: 

The  Creation,  Destruction  and  Restoration  of 
Agriculture  in  Asia  Minor.^ 

[The  following  words,  published  a  year  after  this  article  appeared  in  the 
Contemporary  Review,  express  the  central  thought  of  my  article  so  exactly 
firom  a  totally  different  point  of  view,  that  I  may  be  permitted  to  quote  them 
as  a  motto : — 

Thus  the  men  of  inspiration  of  the  fourteenth  century,  the 
Chaucers   and    the   Langlands,   saw  in   the    typical    agricultural 

LABOURER  THE    GREAT    MORAL  FIGURE  OF  THEIR  WORLD. — Rd.  Heath  in  Cofl- 

temp.  Rev.,  Jan.,  1907,  p.  84.] 

Where  the  mountains  of  Taurus  rise  sharp  and  high  from 
the  southern  edge  of  the  level  plains  of  the  great  central 
plateau  of  Asia  Minor,  and  near  the  point — vague  and  never 
strictly  defined  on  that  flat,  featureless  land — where  Lycaonia 
and  Cappadocia  meet,  there  is  a  narrow  well-wooded  glen 
which  runs  up  two  or  three  miles  southwards  into  the 
mountains.  It  ends  in  a  theatre-shaped  hollow,  at  the  back 
of  which  the  rocky  sides  of  Taurus  tower  almost  perpendicu- 
larly for  some  thousands  of  feet.  At  the  foot  of  the  cliffs  is 
the  source  of  a  stream  which  gushes  forth  in  many  springs 
from  the  rock  with  a  loud  noise  that  almost  drowns  the 
human  voice.  Strangers  find  it  difficult  there  to  converse 
with  one  another,  and  the  speaker  has  to  put  his  mouth  near 
the  ear  of  his  auditor.  The  people  of  the  tiny  village  of 
Ibriz,  near  the  head  of  the  glen,   when  they  come  to  the 

1  This  paper  is  the  enlargement  of  a  lecture  delivered  before  the  Geographical 
Section  of  the  British  Association  at  York,  August,  1906. 

(170 


172  V.   The  Peasant  God 

springs,  talk  in  a  high-pitched  voice,  which  is  heard  across 
the  continuous,  monotonous  roar  of  the  tumbling  water. 

A  river  flows  rapidly  down  the  steep  glen  from  the  source, 
and  out  into  the  plain,  where  it  transforms  this  tract  of  the 
arid,  bare,  burnt-up  plateau  into  a  garden,  as  rills  of  its  water 
are  diverted  into  hundreds  of  little  irrigation  channels.  It 
turns  north-west  and  west,  watched  over  by  a  great  ruined 
castle  perched  high  on  a  hill  two  miles  north  of  the  mouth 
of  the  glen,  a  hill  at  the  western  end  of  a  long  spur  of  Taurus. 
This  is  the  "  strong  Castle  of  Hirakla,"  as  the  Arabs  called 
it,  Herakleia  of  the  Greeks,  which  is  described  by  an  Arab 
poet,  detained  or  imprisoned  in  the  Byzantine  country,  as  one 
of  the  obstacles  that  intervene  between  him  and  his  lady ;  "  O 
thou  who  art  separated  from  me  by  the  Roman  mountains 
and  their  steeps,  by  the  twin  fords  of  the  Sarus,  by  the  Pass 
{i.e.,  the  Cilician  Gates)  which  interrupts  the  way,  by  Tyana 
of  the  frontier,  and  by  Hirakla".  Past  this  great  castle 
(which,  lying  off  the  ordinary  road,  was  never  noticed  by  any 
traveller,  until  in  1891  my  wife  and  I  crossed  the  hills  late 
one  evening  and  passed  close  under  its  walls)  the  river  flows 
on  five  miles,  traverses  the  wretched  town  of  mud-hovels 
called  Eregli,^  which  has  replaced  the  old  city  and  bishopric 
— at  last  about  1060-64  glorified  into  an  archbishopric — of 
Kybistra,  then  turns  south  of  west,  and  after  a  few  miles 
more  flows   into  the  White  Lake,  Ak-Giol,  a  considerable 

i  Eregli  is  now  reviving,  as  it  is  practically  the  terminus  (for  the  time)  of 
the  Bagdad  Railway:  the  actual  rail-head  is  out  in  the  plain  at  Bulgurlar,  a 
Turkmen  hamlet,  five  kilometres  beyond  Eregli,  and  is  likely  to  remain  so  for 
some  time  [1906 :  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the  agreement  concluded  in 
1908  between  the  Porte  and  the  association  of  German  Banks  which  is  pushing 
the  Bagdad  Railway  will  soon  begin  to  be  carried  into  effect.  Advance  beyond 
Bulgurlar  implies  an  energetic  effort  to  carry  the  railway  over  or  through  the 
Taurus.  Bulgurlar  is  the  point  where  the  connection  with  Tyana,  Nigde, 
Kaisari  and  the  north-east  generally,  is  most  convenient.] 


Agruulture  in  Asia  Minor  173, 

body  of  water  in  some  seasons,  in  others  dwindling  to  a  large 
pond  bordered  by  great  marshes.  The  lake  at  its  south- 
western end  approaches  the  Taurus  mountains,  and  when 
the  water  is  high  empties  itself  through  a  short  channel  into 
a  great  circular  hole  under  the  rock  wall  of  Taurus,  and  thus 
is  received  back  into  the  divine  mountain  from  which  it 
came. 

The  river  shadows  forth  in  its  course  the  life  of  man,  as 
the  old  Anatolian  religion  conceived  it ;  from  God  it  comes, 
and  to  God  it  returns  in  the  end.  Nature,  as  that  religion 
understood  it,  was  in  all  its  various  phenomena  expressing 
over  and  over  again  the  one  great  truth — the  life  of  God  is. 
the  life  of  nature  and  the  life  of  man. 

The  source  of  this  river  is  still  called,  like  others  of  the 
most  strikingly  beneficent  springs  of  Asia  Minor,  by  the 
expressive  name  "  God  has  given,"  Huda-verdi.  Never  was 
a  case  in  which  the  gift  of  God  was  more  clearly  declared,  or 
the  immediate  presence  and  permanent  beneficence  of  God 
more  manifest.  The  river  is  given  to  transform  this  comer 
of  the  dry  land  into  a  fertile  garden,  and  as  soon  as  its  work 
is  done,  it  is  received  back  into  the  rich  bosom  of  the  Great 
Mother  Earth. 

It  has  never  been  my  good  fortune  to  see  the  phenomenon 
of  the  disappearance  of  the  river  beneath  the  mountains  at 
its  end.  The  lake  has  been  too  low  on  the  two  occasions 
when  I  have  passed  that  way.  The  main  road  from  the 
west  by  Iconium  to  the  Cilician  Gates  and  Syria  crosses  the 
last  part  of  the  river  channel  by  a  rickety  wooden  bridge.^ 
The  great  hole  in  the  ground  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains 
gaped  close  beside  us.  Tombs  cut  in  the  rock  walls  attested 
the  desire  of  the  ancient  population  to  lie  in  death  at  this. 
^  The  bridge  may  have  been  improved  since  we  last  saw  it  in  1891. 


174  ^-    ^^^  Peasant  God 

holy  place.     But  the  stream  was  dry,  the  graves  were  empty, 
and  the  country  here  was  uninhabited  and  desert. 

On  the  rock  near  the  sources  of  Huda-verdi,  on  a  large 
space  prepared  to  receive  it,^  the  ancient  religion  expressed 
by  the  most  striking  monument  in  all  Anatolia  the  truth  of 
life,  as  it  was  shown  manifestly  in  this  holy  place.  There  on 
the  rock  stands  the  king  of  the  land,  as  the  representative  of 
the  whole  people.  He  is  dressed  in  magnificent  embroidered 
robes ;  he  is  wealthy,  great  and  tall  (about  nine  feet  in  height), 
fit  representative  of  a  rich  and  prosperous  population  ;  and  he 
stands  with  hands  raised  in  front  of  his  face,  adoring  the 
present  god.  The  god  is  a  gigantic  figure,  nearly  twice  as 
large  as  the  king.  He  holds  in  his  hands  the  gifts  which  he 
offers  to  men,  the  corn  and  the  grapes.  At  his  feet  is  an 
implement,  which  seems  to  represent  a  small  rude  plough. 
He  is  dressed  in  a  short  tunic,  simple  and  unadorned,  girt 
with  a  broad  girdle,  with  bare  knees,  his  feet  covered  with 
thick-soled  boots  which  reach  up  the  leg  far  enough  to 
protect  the  ankles  and  the  lower  part  of  the  calves.  The 
upper  part  of  the  boots  consists  of  two  flaps  at  back  and 
front,  and  the  fastening  is  by  a  string  which  is  twisted  a  good 
many  times  round  to  hold  the  flaps  together  and  keep  the 
boots  in  place.  Everything  is  of  the  plainest  kind.  The 
god  wears  the  minimum  of  clothing,  and  that  of  the  simplest. 
The  belt  is  worked  in  zones  of  simple  line-pattern,  chiefly 
zig-zag ;  in  that  country  some  simple  kind  of  ornamentation 
is  and  was  almost  universally  used  ;  even  "  the  coarsest  sacks 
bear  ornamental    patterns,   and  the   very  paper  in  which 

1 A  second  monument  of  the  same  character  and  showing  the  same  subject, 
in  poorer  preservation,  was  discovered  by  Mrs.  Doughty  Wylie  in  1906.  It  is 
about  300  feet  higher  up  the  mountain  side,  and  on  a  shelf  of  the  steep  hillside 
close  to  it  stands  a  Byzantine  church,  an  interesting  proof  that  the  pre- 
Christianity  sanctity  lasted  through  the  Christian  times  :  see  p.  158. 


PLATE  XXI. 


To  face  p.  174. 


The  Peasant-God  at  Ibriz. 


Agriculture  in  Asia  Minor  175 

shopkeepers  wrap  their  parcels  is  often  adorned  with 
coloured  patterns  ".* 

The  peasant  from  the  neighbouring  village  who  conducts 
the  travellers  to  the  Huda-verdi  source  wears  clothing  almost 
exactly  the  same  in  style  as  the  god's,  the  tunic,  the  boots 
and  the  belt.  Little  has  changed  here.  Your  guide  proves 
to  you  the  nature  of  the  god.  He  is  the  peasant-god,  the 
toiling,  simple  agriculturist,  living  by  the  work  of  his  hands, 
and  making  wealth  and  prosperity  for  the  country  and  its 
kings  and  great  men.  The  kings  have  come  and  gone, 
nothing  remains  of  them  and  their  work.  The  peasant  is 
eternal  and  unchangeable.  You  feel  that  there  was  a  large 
foundation  of  truth  and  wisdom  in  the  religion  which  so 
correctly  gauged  the  relative  importance  of  the  king  and  the 
peasant,  and  anticipated  Carlyle  in  his  philosophy  of  clothes, 
giving  the  outward  distinction  of  show  and  dress  to  the  king, 
an  ephemeral  personage,  and  assigning  to  the  peasant  the 
real  distinction  of  work  and  of  service  to  mankind  and  of  the 
gifts  which  he  bestows  on  the  world,  the  corn  and  the  wine. 

One  part  of  the  clothing  differs.  The  head-dress  marks 
the  god.  He  wears  authority  on  his  head,  just  as  St.  Paul, 
in  his  first  letter  to  the  Corinthians  xi.  10,  says  that  the  veil 
on  her  head  is  the  authority  of  the  woman ;  with  the  veil  on 
she  is  in  an  Oriental  land  supreme  wherever  she  goes ;  with- 
out the  veil  she  is  a  thing  of  nought,  whom  any  one  may 
insult  with  impunity.'-     The  god  shown  in  the  sculpture  at 

1  Miss  Ramsay  in  Studies  in  the  Art  a7id  History  of  the  Eastern  Roman 
Provinces  (Hodder  &  Stoughton,  1906),  p.  21. 

2 1  speak  of  the  typical  Oriental  feeling,  where  it  has  not  been  affected  by 
knowledge  of  European  customs.  Where  European  ladies  have  been  known, 
they  are  treated  respectfully  (in  some  cases  with  very  marked  respect  in 
Turkey);  but  the  earlier  missionaries  in  Turkey  found  the  situation  often 
very  difficult. 


176  V.    The  Peasant  God 

Ibriz  has  a  high  pointed  tiara  with  two  horns  projecting  in 
front,  the  mystic  sense  and  power  of  which  we  cannot  now 
interpret  in  their  full  import. 

But  why  is  the  divine  power  described  on  the  rock  beside 
Huda-verdi  as  the  toiling  peasant,  and  not  as  the  joyous  river- 
god,  or  as  the  Goddess-Mother  of  all  life,  the  Earth  herself, 
who  from  her  bosom  gives  forth  this  bounteous  gift  to  the 
world  in  its  need  ?  The  mind  of  Greece,  at  such  a  spot  as 
this,  would  have  been  filled  with  the  gladness  of  the  loud- 
laughing  water  and  the  promise  of  fertility  and  growth  and 
prosperous  husbandry.  The  Anatolian  mind  was  generally 
filled  with  the  thought  of  the  divine  Mother,  the  giver  of  all 
things,  the  ultimate  source  of  all  life ;  and  surely  here,  if  any- 
where, her  bounty  and  graciousness  are  conspicuous.  In 
her  life  the  god  is  a  mere  accidental  and  secondary  personage. 
Yet  here  on  the  rock  the  dominant  thought  is  about  the 
work  of  men,  symbolised  by  the  toiling  god,  subduer  of  the 
waste  and  unprofitable  places.  Not  the  free  gift  of  the 
divine  nature,  but  the  labour  that  must  be  applied  by  man 
to  make  that  gift  profitable,  stands  graven  on  that  great 
monument.  The  primary  personage  of  the  divine  nature, 
the  goddess,  is  away  in  the  background,  and  the  secondary 
personage,  the  god,  monopolises  the  scene. 

Now  it  is  the  law  of  the  world  that,  while  the  divine  power 
gives  rain  and  fruitful  seasons,  there  is  an  annual  cycle  of 
work  by  the  hands  of  man  which  must  be  applied  to  plough, 
to  sow  and  to  reap.  But  that  work  is  always  understood  as 
the  ordinary  course  of  life;  it  is  not  a  toil,  but  a  pleasure;  it 
is  the  mere  effort  of  raising  to  the  lips  the  food  which  the 
god  has  bestowed ;  it  constitutes  the  permanent  enjoyment 
of  the  bounty  of  God,  extending  over  the  year  and  the  whole 
life.       The   man    who   regards    the    regular   operations   of 


Agriculture  in  Asia  Minor  177 

husbandry  as  toil  and  labour,  undertaken  solely  with  a  view 
to  the  distant  harvest,  is  not  a  true  agriculturist.  The 
true  agriculturist  is  he  who  takes  the  work  of  the  year  as 
the  cycle  of  a  happy  life,  and  does  each  part  of  the  year's 
duties  with  a  heart  full  of  gratitude  to  the  God  who  has 
permitted  him  to  do  this  duty.  So  far  as  this  aspect  of 
labour  is  concerned,  the  rock-sculpture  of  Ibriz  might  be 
expected  to  portray  the  pure  bounty  of  the  beneficent  god, 
who  pours  forth  the  life-giving  and  wealth-producing  water 
for  the  happiness  of  man.  A  deeper  thought  lay  in  the  mind 
of  the  sculptor  who  portrayed  that  scene  on  the  rock  at 
Ibriz.  This  is  the  religious  problem  of  the  sculpture ;  and 
the  answer  to  this  problem  lays  open  a  far  deeper  view  into 
the  heart  of  the  old  Anatolian  religion  than  the  writer 
ever  before  was  able  to  attain. 

The  early  religion  of  Anatolia,  often  called  the  Phrygian 
religion — a  name  which  is  historically  incorrect,  for  the 
Phrygians  were  a  mere  body  of  intruders  from  Europe,  who 
adopted  the  religion  of  the  land  into  which  they  had  come 
as  strangers  somewhere  about  a  thousand  years  before  Christ, 
that  ancient  religion  which  was  supreme  in  the  country  in 
the  second  and  third  millenniums  B.C.,  and  the  date  of  whose 
origin  cannot  even  be  guessed  at  ^ — embodied  in  a  series  of 
rules  and  ceremonial  practices  the  past  experience  and  ac- 
cumulated wisdom  of  the  race.  In  regard  to  agriculture,  the 
domestication  and  breeding  of  animals,  the  cultivation  of 
valuable  trees  like  the  olive  and  the  vine,  sanitation,  the 
rights  of  society  as  against  the  individual,  the  law  of  property 
and  boundaries,  the  right  of  free  intercourse  and  markets, 
in  short,  the  whole  life  of  society,  the  customs  which  had 
been  approved  as  salutary  by  the  collective  and  growing 

^"Religion  of  Asia  Minor"  in  Hastings'  Diet.  Bib.,  V.,  p.  no  ff. 
12 


178  V.    The  Peasant  God 

wisdom  of  the  race,  were  taught  as  obligatory  rules  and 
enforced  by  religious  authority :  the  offender  who  trespassed 
against  any  of  those  rules  was  chastised  by  the  god.  The 
divine  power  tenders  to  the  use  of  man  all  its  gifts ;  but 
they  must  be  won  by  knowledge  and  by  work.  The  know- 
ledge, learned  slowly  by  the  experience  of  generations,  was 
regarded  in  the  religion  as  revealed  by  the  goddess,  the 
Great  Mother  of  all  life,  who  bore  and  nourished,  warned 
and  taught,  directed  and  chastised,  all  her  people,  and  in  the 
end  receives  them  all  back  to  her  kindly  bosom.  Her 
religion  set  forth  in  a  body  of  wise  rules  and  precepts  all 
the  knowledge  which  was  needed  in  ordinary  circumstances. 
Her  people  had  only  to  obey  and  to  be  faithful.  In  excep- 
tional circumstances  the  Great  Mother  was  ready  to  give 
special  advice  through  her  prophets  and  in  dreams.  She 
punished  inexorably  all  infractions  of  her  law,  by  misfortune, 
by  sickness,  and  above  all  by  fever,  that  strange  malady 
which  burns  up  the  strength  and  the  life  by  direct  effort  of 
the  divine  power  without  any  definite  or  visible  affection  of 
any  part  of  the  body.  Such  was  the  penalty  inflicted  on 
every  individual  transgressor  of  the  law  ;  and  confessions  of 
guilt,  with  warnings  as  to  the  penalties  that  followed  guilt, 
were  inscribed  on  tablets  and  put  up  publicly  at  the  temples 
of  the  goddess,!^  where  the  traveller  of  the  present  day  may 
read  them  and  publish  them  to  a  wider  public  than  was 
dreamed  of  by  the  first  authors.  Not  merely  was  the 
individual  punished.  The  community  as  a  whole  was 
punished  by  the  loss  of  prosperity,  of  security  and  ulti- 
mately of  its  very  existence,  if  the  law  was  persistently 
broken ;  and  to  safeguard  it  the  religious  sanction  was  strict 
and  inexorable. 

1  Many  examples  in  Cities  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  i,,  pp.  134  ff,,  147  ff. 


Agriculture  in  Asia  Minor  179 

Now  in  the  beginning  it  was  the  labour  of  generations  of 
the  working  peasants  that  redeemed  the  soil  from  its  original 
unproductiveness ;  and  this  god  on  the  rock  at  Ibriz  stands 
for  the  work  that  had  given  the  soil  to  agriculture.  There 
is  no  question  in  Anatolia  of  a  natural  soil  which  has  simply 
to  be  cultivated  in  order  to  produce.  The  soil  originally 
was  waste  and  valueless.  A  vast  amount  of  toil  and  skill 
had  to  be  applied  before  the  land  could  begin  to  be  cultivated. 
The  rock-sculpture  bears  witness  to  one  of  those  great 
engineering  works  that  lie  away  back  at  the  beginning  of 
agriculture  and  history.  All  over  the  Eastern  Mediterranean 
lands — probably  round  the  Central  and  Western  Mediter- 
ranean also,  if  we  had  any  records — the  reclamation  of  the 
soil  from  waste  to  fertility  was  regarded  as  the  work  of 
a  toiling  god,  bound  to  service  under  a  stern  master  or  king, 
who  has  in  some  way  got  a  hold  over  him  and  can  compel 
him  to  a  labour  in  itself  ungrateful  and  performed  only 
under  compulsion.  Hercules  was  the  commonest  name  for 
that  toiling  god.  Hercules  drained  the  marsh  of  Lerna  with 
its  fifty  heads  of  water,  and  gave  to  men  the  richest  part  of 
the  valley  of  Argos.  Hercules  cut  the  passage  through  the 
mountains  by  which  the  lake  imprisoned  in  the  land-locked 
vale  of  Stymphalos  was  enabled  to  flow  away  and  the  fertile 
soil  was  made  available  for  the  happy  husbandman. 

It  was  the  forethought  and  knowledge  displayed  in  those 
great  engineering  works  that  seemed  to  the  ancient  mind  to 
be  divine.  The  god  condescended  to  work  as  a  toiling  peas- 
ant and  won  for  the  use  of  men  this  far-off  good,  which  human 
skill  alone  could  not  have  foreseen,  and  thus  he  gave  to  man 
in  free  gift  the  soil  out  of  which  should  come  the  corn  and 
the  wine.  But  to  understand  all  that  is  implied  in  this,  one 
has  to  look  at  the  country  as  it  is  at  the  present  day,  when 


i8o  V-   The  Peasant  God 

it  has  to  a  large  extent  gone  back  to  the  state  of  nature  and 
of  waste  land.  How  has  this  come  about,  and  what  is  the 
cure? 

Elsewhere  the  present  writer  has  described  the  character 
of  the  Mohammedan  conquest  of  Asia  Minor. ^  The  Saracens, 
a  congeries  of  various  Asiatic  races,  led  by  the  Arabs,  at- 
tempted it,  and  failed  completely.  During  three  centuries 
of  war  they  never  permanently  held  any  land  beyond  Taurus 
except  what  their  armies  actually  covered.^  The  Turks, 
first  the  Seljuk  Turks  and  afterwards  the  Osmanli,  achieved 
what  the  Saracens  could  not  do ;  and  they  succeeded  only 
by  breaking  up  the  fabric  of  the  superior  society  and  reducing 
it  to  disconnected  atoms.  This  was  not  done  consciously  or 
intentionally.  The  Turks  did  not  wish  to  destroy  the  in- 
dustry and  wealth  of  the  country ;  the  intention  of  the  Sul- 
tans was  to  profit  by  its  prosperity.  The  ruin  was  the  work 
of  the  Nomads,  who  followed  close  after  the  irruption  of  the 
Turkish  armies. 

The  distinction  between  those  Nomads — Turkmen,  Yuruk, 
Avshahr,  etc.,  as  the  traveller  still  sees  them — and  the  Turks 
proper,  who  now  call  themselves  Osmanli,  was  as  evident  to 
the  Byzantine  authorities  in  the  twelfth  century  as  it  is  to- 
day, or  was  fifty  years  ago.  But  the  real  nature  of  the 
distinction  and  the  origin  of  the  various  tribes  are  obscure, 
and  so  far  as  I  know  uninvestigated.  Those  tribes  are  de- 
scribed under  the  names  of  Nomads  or  Turkmens  by  Anna 
Comnena,  Nicetas  of  Khonai  and  Joannes  Cinnamus.  They 
evidently  followed  close  on  the  first  Turkish  armies  of  in- 
vasion ;  and  their  relation  to  the  soldiers  of  those  armies  is 

1  See  especially  a  paper  on  the  war  of  Moslem  and  Christian  for  the  posses- 
sion of  Asia  Minor,  in  Studies  in  the  History  and  Art  of  the  Eastern  Roman 
Provinces,  p.  281  ff. 

-See  in  the  present  volume,  p.  116. 


Agricuilure  in  Asia  Minor  i8i 

difficult  to  determine.  That  is  one  of  the  many  questions 
which  await  the  historian  of  the  Turkish  conquest  of  Asia 
Minor.  Were  those  Nomads  the  offspring  of  the  first  in- 
vaders in  A.D.  1070,  who  maintained  in  Asia  Minor  their 
national  way  of  Hfe  as  they  had  led  it  in  Central  Asia,  while 
the  Turks  of  the  cities  were  a  people  mixed  of  the  old  popu- 
lation turned  Moslem  with  part  of  the  invading  armies  ? 

The  story  of  the  Seljuk  conquest  has  still  to  be  written ; 
for  Gibbon's  generalisations  are  brilliant  and  unsatisfactory, 
while  Sir  H.  Howorth's  excellent  essay  is  just  sufficient  to 
make  us  long  for  a  detailed  study  according  to  localities. 
It  is  abundantly  clear  that,  after  their  first  inroads  and  their 
first  great  victory  at  Manzikert,  the  loose  and  ill-organised 
Turkish  armies  were  not  able  to  meet  in  fair  fight  and  on 
even  terms  a  Byzantine  army,  if  the  latter  was  led  with  any 
degree  of  prudence  and  skill. ^  Yet  the  Roman  civilisation, 
which  had  resisted  three  centuries  of  constant  Arab  raids 
and  numerous  Arab  victories,  died  out  before  the  undis- 
ciplined Seljuk  power.  It  was  the  Nomads  who  destroyed 
it  against  the  wishes  and  intentions  of  the  Seljuk  govern- 
ment, whose  enemies  they  very  quickly  became. 

The  Nomads  remain  now  generally  quite  apart  from  the 

Osmanli  or  Turks,  though  the  Osmanli  were  a  mere  Nomad 

tribe  as  late  as  A.D.  1300;  and  they  continued  practically 

independent  of  the  Turkish  rule  until  late  in  the  nineteenth 

century,  some  of  them  till  the  twentieth  century.     I  have  in 

my   own   short   experience   come   in   contact   with   several 

*  I  speak  only  of  the  Seljuks,  not  of  the  Osmanli  or  Ottoman  Turks,  whose 
Janissaries  were  more  dangerous  than  the  best  forces  in  Europe;  but  the 
Janissaries  were  the  tax  levied  in  brain  and  muscle  on  the  Christians.  The 
Seljuk  victories  were  gained  in  the  decay  of  the  empire ;  but  John  Comnenus 
prepared  a  revival  of  Byzantine  power,  which  was  wasted  by  the  rash  folly  of 
Manuel  in  the  Pisidian  rout  (Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Provinces, 
p.  235). 


1 82  V-   The  Peasant  God 

examples  of  the  recent  subjugation  of  tribes  whom  travellers 
a  little  older  describe  as  independent.  One  case  only  out  of 
several  that  have  come  under  my  own  notice  may  be  described. 

In  the  Ouzoun  Yaila,  the  long  high-lying  plains  between 
the  south-eastern  affluents  of  the  Halys  and  the  most 
westerly  affluents  of  the  Euphrates  (especially  the  Tokhma- 
Su),  the  nomad  Avshahr  were  supreme  and  free  until  about 
1866.  Then  great  numbers  of  Circassian  refugees  entered 
Turkey,  at  the  invitation  of  the  Government,  fleeing  from 
their  homes  which  had  been  conquered  by  Russia.  The  first 
act  in  the  new  drama  was  that  the  Turkish  officials,  charged 
with  the  duty  of  settling  the  immigrants  in  this  sparsely 
populated  land,  plundered  those  wretched  and  poverty- 
stricken  refugees  of  everything  that  they  had  brought  with 
them.  The  next  was  to  let  them  fight  with  the  former  in- 
habitants for  land — a  fight  that  has  been  going  on  in  a 
smouldering  way  ever  since.  A  large  body  of  Circassians 
was  brought  to  the  borders  of  the  Ouzoun  Yaila,  and  en- 
couraged to  take  possession  of  the  land.  A  regular  war 
ensued.  The  ill-armed  Avshahr  were  defeated  and  driven 
into  the  mountains  of  the  Anti-Taurus ;  and  the  plains  of  the 
Ouzoun  Yaila  are  now  inhabited  by  Circassians. 

Those  Nomads,  the  real  conquerors  of  the  land  of  Ana- 
tolia, are  still  in  some  respects  the  most  interesting  people 
in  the  country,  though  great  efforts  have  been  made  in  the 
last  fifteen  or  twenty  years  to  force  them  to  settle  down  by 
seizing  their  beasts  of  burden  and  preventing  their  customary 
annual  migrations.  Much  suffering  has  been  caused  to  the 
present  generation,  and  much  injustice  has  been  done  to  in- 
dividuals ;  but  it  must  be  allowed  that  the  migrations  were 
not  compatible  with  order  and  industry.  The  process  has 
been  an  interesting  one  to  watch.     Every  year  I  notice  new 


Agrictdture  in  Asia  Minor  183 

villages,  where  formerly  were  only  nomad  encampments. 
The  Peasant-God  is  slowly  beginning  to  work.  It  is  a  hard 
task,  unwillingly  undertaken,  at  the  command  of  a  stern  task- 
master. The  life  of  the  nomad,  a  perpetual  holiday,  has  to 
be  exchanged  for  this  toil  of  reclamation ;  and  it  will  be  a 
slow  and  painful  process  to  bring  back  the  land  into  its 
former  state  of  high  cultivation.  These  amateur  agriculturists 
have  no  agricultural  tradition,  no  store  of  knowledge  and 
method  accumulated  through  generations  and  centuries,  few 
implements  and  no  practice  in  using  them.  The  women 
mainly  do  the  work.  If  a  modern  artist  arises  to  express  in 
sculpture  or  painting  the  history  of  the  re-creation  of  agri- 
culture, he  will  have  to  change  the  sex  of  the  deity  who  stands 
for  the  toil  expended  by  mankind  in  this  transformation.^ 
It  is  no  longer  the  goddess  who  teaches  and  gives  counsel 
and  practises  the  household  arts,  and  the  god  who  does  the 
field  labour.  The  woman  works  in  the  field,  and  there  are 
no  household  arts.  It  was  pathetic,  when  we  spent  some 
nights  in  nomad  Kurd  encampments  on  the  central  Anatolian 
plains,  to  see  the  envy  and  admiration  with  which  the  women 
looked  at  and  handled  the  few  needles  and  simple  articles 
for  the  household  and  the  toilet  which  my  wife  had  with  her. 
As  the  nomads  do  not  seclude  their  women,  I  was  a  witness 
of  some  interesting  scenes  and  phases  of  feminine  nature. 
We  were  specially  struck  with  what  one  might  almost  call 
the  rage  of  envy  with  which  one  handsome  young  woman 
looked  on  and  refused  to  touch;   never  have  I  seen  such 

1 1  speak  only  of  the  Turkish  and  Nomad  population.  The  Circassian 
women  are  not  so  hard-worked,  though  Turkish  custom  is  affecting  the  immi- 
grants. Among  the  Christians  the  women  do  the  house-work  and  practise  the 
household  arts  and  go  out  dressed  in  their  best  clothes  on  Sundays  and 
holidays,  and  are  free  from  all  but  the  lighter  field-labour.  So  also  among  the 
Albanians  so  far  as  I  have  seen  them. 


184  V.    The  Peasant  God 

rebelliousness  against  the  tyranny  of  fate  as  glittered  in  her 
eyes.  She  wanted  the  things  for  herself:  she  would  not 
admire  them  when  they  belonged  to  another.  No  wonder 
that  the  son  of  a  Kurdish  Bey  in  a  village  of  the  Anti- 
Taurus  once  said  to  us,  "  all  our  men  are  thieves ".  Thus 
the  various  races  of  Nomads  stand  opposed  to  the  settled 
Mohammedan  population  of  the  towns  and  villages  at  the 
present  day. 

The  picture  which  the  Byzantine  writers  set  before  us  of 
the  conquest  by  the  nomads  has  been  briefly  described  else- 
where by  the  writer ;  ^  "  the  nomad  Turkmens  spread  over  the 
face  of  the  land  ;  the  soil  passed  out  of  cultivation ;  the 
population  decreased ;  the  old  Christian  cities  (which  had  not 
lost  their  former  industries)  were  isolated  from  each  other 
by  a  sea  of  wandering  tribes  ;  intercourse,  and  consequently 
trade  and  manufactures,  were  to  a  great  extent  destroyed.  .  .  . 
Thus  was  accomplished  the  degeneration  from  civilised  to 
barbarian  society,  a  process  which  it  would  be  instructive  to 
study  in  detail,  but  which  can  be  summed  up  in  one  word, 
the  nomadisation  of  Asia  Minor."  The  detailed  study 
which  is  hinted  at  in  the  last  sentence  would  be  the  work  of 
a  lifetime ;  but  a  sketch  of  the  process,  so  far  as  during  ten 
years  of  further  study  it  has  become  clearer  to  me,  may  here 
be  given. 

It  is  almost  literally  the  case  that  the  flood  of  nomadism 
drowned  out  the  old  civilised  society  and  submerged  the  land. 
The  process  was  gradual.  The  cities  were  first  of  all  isolated 
from  one  another.  They  remained  as  islands  in  the  sea  of 
nomadism,  they  were  still  inhabited  by  a  manufacturing  and 

^Impressions  of  Turkey,  p.  103  (with  some  verbal  changes).  The  progress 
of  the  Nomads  in  the  western  regions  of  Asia  Minor  is  described  in  Cilies  and 
Bishoprics  0/  Phrygia,  i.,  pp.  i6  f.,  27  ff.,  299  ff. ;  ii.,  pp.  372  f.,  447,  598,  695. 


Agriculture  in  Asia  Minor  185 

trading  population,  which  the  Seljuk  Turks  allowed  and  even 
encouraged.  But  trade  implies  communication,  facilities  for 
travel,  opportunities  for  exchange.  In  a  civilised  society 
like  that  of  the  Roman  Empire  no  city  had  been  self-suffi- 
cient, all  had  depended  on  one  another.  The  life-blood  of  a 
civilised  State  must  circulate  freely  through  the  whole  body. 
If  the  circulation  is  impeded,  the  body  languishes  and  dies. 

That  was  now  the  case  in  Anatolia.  The  cities  were 
isolated  from  one  another  by  the  "estranging  sea"  of 
nomadism.  Across  this  sea,  slowly  and  always  exposed  to 
the  attacks  of  the  nomads,  especially  of  course  at  night, 
voyaged  caravans,  seeking  to  maintain  the  necessary  circula- 
tion of  the  life-blood,  the  communication  between  city  and 
city.  To  make  these  voyages  safer  the  Seljuk  Sultans  built 
many  great  khans  along  the  principal  roads  that  radiated 
from  their  capital,  Konia ;  and  those  buildings,  in  many  cases 
magnificent  both  in  scale  and  in  architecture,  rank  among 
the  most  impressive  features  of  modern  Anatolia,  and 
deserve  notice,  along  with  the  beautiful  mosques,  colleges 
{medresse)  and  tombs,  as  evidence  of  the  remarkable  develop- 
ment of  architectural  art  in  the  Seljuk  period. 

Some  recent  German  travellers  have  described  those  great 
khans  as  a  proof  of  the  high  level  of  civilisation  on  which  the 
Seljuk  State  stood.  One  of  the  latest  of  them  expresses  the 
opinion  that  the  Seljuk  khans  have  taken  the  place  of  similar 
large  Roman  and  Byzantine  buildings,  and  conserve  in  their 
plan,  which  is  everywhere  practically  the  same,  the  accepted 
method  of  those  older  hotels  on  the  Roman  roads.  There  is 
a  large  element  of  truth  in  part  of  this  opinion,  but  part  needs 
serious  modification.  As  those  same  travellers  remark,  the 
large  Seljuk  khans  resemble  fortresses,  with  their  massive 
walls,  unbroken  by  any  opening  except  slits  which  are  loop- 


1 86  V.   The  Peasant  God 

holes  rather  than  windows,  and  their  single,  well-protected 
entrance.  If  there  were  similar  buildings  along  the  Roman 
roads,  how  comes  it  that  not  a  trace  has  ever  been  found  of 
them  ?  The  truth  is,  that  such  buildings  were  not  wanted 
where  travelling  was  fairly  safe,  as  it  was  in  the  Roman 
Empire.  The  inns  and  mansiones  of  the  Empire  were  build- 
ings of  a  humbler  and  less  lasting  character.  Fortresses 
were  not  needed.  Private  enterprise  was  sufficient  to  main- 
tain hotels  or  inns  adequate  to  the  needs  of  travellers.  All 
that  is  known  of  them  suggests  that  they  were  of  a  humble 
character,  squalid,  dirty  and  vicious,^  and  that  wealthier 
travellers  avoided  them  and  took  their  own  equipment  In 
a  i&w  cases,  on  the  summit  of  high  passes  across  the 
mountains,  buildings  of  a  more  permanent  kind  were  needed, 
as,  e.g.,  at  the  summit  of  the  great  Taurus  pass  just  above 
the  Cilician  Gates ;  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  at  this  point 
was  the  ancient  Panhormos,  whose  name  shows  it  to  have 
been  a  large  inn.  Defensive  strength  would  be  of  some  im- 
portance here  among  the  mountains,  and  a  guardhouse  and 
harbour  of  refuge,  Panhormos,  was  established  on  the  sum- 
mit, which  was  often  deeply  covered  with  snow  in  winter. 

The  Seljuk  khans  bear  witness  to  the  high  development 
of  art,  but  to  a  very  unsound  condition  of  society  and  govern- 
ment, in  the  Seljuk  State.  Such  great,  fortress-like  buildings 
were  not  needed  on  the  Roman  roads  and  therefore  were  not 
built  then.  In  the  Seljuk  time  they  were  necessary,  be- 
cause the  caravans,  by  which  alone  trade  and  communication 
were  kept  up  between  the  cities,  required  shelter  at  night 
and  protection  from  the  nomads.  The  cities  were  islets  in 
the  ocean  of  nomadism ;  and  the  khans  were  harbours  of 
refuge  at  short  intervals  in  the  dangerous  voyage  from  city 

^  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  p.  385. 


Agriculture  in  Asia  Minor  187 

to  city.  Peace  began  to  reign  on  the  roads  only  when  com- 
munication ceased,  when  there  were  no  travellers  to  rob  and 
no  trade  to  plunder. 

As  for  the  model  on  which  the  khans  of  the  Seljuks  were 
built,  I  should,  like  Dr.  Sarre,  find  it  in  an  old  Anatolian 
style  of  building  ;  but  not  in  hotels  of  the  Roman  or  Byzan- 
tine time.  The  model  was  the  old  class  of  buildings  called 
Tetrapyrgia,  whose  very  name  reveals  their  form.  They 
were  farmsteadings  of  quadrilateral  shape,  having  at  the  four 
comers,  towers,  which  were  connected  by  walls  and  inner 
chambers,  enclosing  an  open  quadrangle.  They  were  so 
strong  that  regular  military  operations  were  needed  to  re- 
duce them  ;  ^  and,  given  the  shape  just  described,  this  implies 
a  construction  like  the  Seljuk  khans,  with  strong  outer  walls- 
and  a  single  defensible  gateway.  The  view  of  Zazadin 
Khan  ^  near  Iconium,  given  in  Plate  XV.,  may  serve  as  a 
fair  specimen  of  these  buildings. 

In  those  big  fortified  homesteads  lived  the  large  patriarchal 
households  of  the  landholders,  representatives  of  the  con- 
quering caste  in  a  subjugated  land,  a  class  which  is  just 
beginning  in  recent  investigation  to  appear  before  the  view 
of  history.  From  those  landed  families  came  some  of  the 
leading  figures  in  early  Church  history,  such  as  Basil  of 
Caesareia  and  Gregory  of  Nyssa.  Their  history  may  yet  be 
traced  more  completely. 

The  cities  of  Turkey,  isolated  from  one  another  and  thus 
compelled  to  be  each  sufficient  for  itself,  dwindled  away. 
The  old  manufactures  died,  some  sooner,  some  as  late  as  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.     It  was  my  good  fortune 

1  As  Eumenes  had  to  do  (Plutarch,  Bum.  8  :  Studies  in  the  History  of  the 
Easierti  Provinces,  p.  373). 

2  See  below,  Article  XII.,  No.  17. 


iS8  V.   The  Peasant  God 

that  we  began,  my  wife  and  I,  to  travel  just  at  the  end  of  the 
period  of  decay.  We  saw  the  end  of  the  old  and  the  begin- 
ning of  the  new.  I  remember  riding  into  Konia,  once  the 
greatest  and  most  splendid  city  of  Turkey — of  which  the 
Turkish  proverb  said,  "  See  all  the  world,  but  see  Konia" ;  it 
was  as  if  one  were  riding  through  a  city  of  the  dead,  street 
after  street  seemed  empty  and  solitary,  like  the  enchanted 
city  in  the  story  of  the  Arabian  Nights.  But  now  Konia  is 
rising  again  to  be  an  important,  though  far  from  a  splendid 
city,  as  the  terminus  of  the  Anatolian  Railway  and  beginning 
of  the  Bagdad  Railway.  Its  claims  to  magnificence  are  gone ; 
the  old  walls  were  all  torn  down  about  twenty  to  thirty  years 
ago ;  of  the  palace  only  the  shapeless  core  of  a  tower  remains ; 
some  of  the  beautiful  old  mosques  are  ruinous,  some  are 
patched  in  the  coarsest  way,  yet  even  thus  many  of  them 
retain  enough  of  the  past  to  be  charming.  In  April,  1904, 
we  noticed  unwonted  patches  of  white  colour  along  the  road 
from  the  railway  station  to  the  Government  house,  and  on 
inquiry  learned  that  the  German  Ambassador  had  visited 
the  city  a  week  before,  and  the  mud  walls  had  all  been  white- 
washed along  the  road  by  which  he  drove  to  call  on  the  Pasha. 
That  is  the  cheap  magnificence  of  the  twentieth  century  in 
Asia  Minor.  One  week  after  the  gorgeous  pageant  there 
vi^ere  still  a  few  traces  left  of  it ! 

Not  merely  did  trade  and  manufacture  die  out.  The  land 
passed  out  of  cultivation,  except  in  so  far  as  was  necessary  to 
feed  a  dwindling  population.  Nomads  do  not  cultivate  the 
ground,  but  live  on  their  flocks,  and  only  the  city  population 
required  to  be  supported  from  the  tillage  of  the  ground. 
Thus  a  land  which  had  been  absolutely  the  richest  in  the 
world  became  one  of  the  poorest.  I  have  seen,  especially  in 
Palestine,  bare  hillsides  where  could  be  traced  the  old  terraces, 


Agriculture  in  Asia  Minor  189 

showing  that  the  hills  had  once  been  cultivated  to  the  very- 
summit;  but  the  terraces  were  neglected  and  gradually 
broken  down,  the  soil  was  washed  off  the  hillside,  and  there 
remained  either  bare  rock  or  a  uniform  slope  too  steep  to 
cultivate,  if  any  cultivator  appeared.  There  are  many 
stretches  of  land  on  the  edge  of  the  hills  which  are  now 
almost  covered  with  stones  washed  down  from  above ;  yet 
round  the  villages  some  scanty  cultivation  exists,  and  corn 
struggles  up  amid  the  stones  from  a  soil  which  is  hardly 
visible  under  them,  but  which  is  so  fertile  that  even  thus  it 
can  grow  a  wretched  crop  to  make  bread  for  the  villagers. 
There  are  vast  plains  of  splendid  soil  where  you  could  hardly 
see  a  stone  in  an  acre — pure,  rich  soil  but  absolutely  sterile 
because  the  water  supply  has  ceased.  Where  the  land  has 
become  so  bare  and  smooth,  the  rain  runs  off  as  soon  as  it  has 
fallen,  because  there  is  nothing  to  detain  it.  The  irrigation 
channels  in  that  soft,  deep  soil  efface  themselves  as  soon  as  they 
are  neglected.  Yet  there  is  abundance  of  water  near  at  hand, 
it  only  needs  to  be  distributed.  Over  parts  of  such  plain  we 
rode  once,  my  wife  and  I,  for  more  than  an  hour,  through 
water  over  two  feet  deep :  in  other  years  I  have  ridden 
repeatedly  over  the  same  road,  and  found  the  country  hard 
and  dry  as  a  bone  that  had  lain  for  years  in  the  sun.^ 

I  have  seen  miles  and  miles — and  know  there  are  many- 
hundreds  of  miles — along  the  coast-land  covered  with  a 
growth  of  wild  olive  shrubs,  where  now  not  a  single  olive  is 
produced.  All  that  country  was  once  a  great  olive  garden, 
teeming  with  wealth  and  population,  where  now  are  only  a 
few  black  goats'-hair  tents  in  the  winter,  and  hardly  a  living 

1  This  refers  to  the  road  from  Konia  to  Kara-Bunar  and  the  East  generally : 
the  precise  part  was  west  of  Ismil.  The  most  direct  path  from  Konia  to 
Ismil  is  passable  only  in  the  driest  season  of  the  year :  the  ordinary  path 
keeps  well  to  the  north  to  avoid  the  inundating  waters. 


1 90  V.    The  Peasant  God 

•soul  in  the  heat  of  summer.  The  olive  dies  out  where  the 
population  is  Mohammedan.  It  is  the  tree  of  civilisation, 
which  can  flourish  only  where  order  and  security  of  tenure 
exist.  Even  in  a  disorderly  land  one  may  sow  cereals  and 
vegetables,  the  fruit  of  which  may  with  luck  be  gathered  in 
a  few  months ;  but  the  young  olive  takes  fifteen  to  eighteen 
years  to  bring  in  any  return,  and  an  outlook  over  that 
length  of  time  is  too  great  for  any  Mohammedan  population. 
The  reason  lies,  not  in  any  inherent  necessity  of  Moham- 
medanism, but  in  the  fact  that  no  Mohammedan  Govern- 
ment, except,  perhaps,  that  of  the  Moors  in  Spain,  has 
ever  been  able  to  produce  the  assurance  in  the  minds  of 
its  subjects  that  property  will  be  secure  for  so  long  that 
it  would  be  worth  while  to  make  an  olive  plantation. 

One  example  may  be  given  of  the  contrast  between  the 
wealth  of  the  past  and  the  poverty  of  recent  time.  In  1882 
I  found  a  column,  eleven  feet  high,  covered  on  one  side  with 
Greek  writing,  in  an  upland  village  near  Antioch  of  Pisidia. 
It  records  a  list  of  subscriptions  for  patriotic  and  religious 
purposes,  made  on  some  occasion  about  250  A.D.  by  a  society 
which  was  fighting  against  Christianity. ^  The  subscriptions 
amount  to  several  hundred  thousand  denarii.  The  denarius 
had  considerably  depreciated  in  value  at  that  date  since 
the  time  when  it  was  worth  a  franc;  and  the  exact  point 
of  depreciation  which  it  had  reached  is  uncertain,  but  it 
can  hardly  have  been  lower  than  a  thousand  to  the  pound 
sterling  in  amount  of  metal.  The  total  sum  subscribed  was 
certainly  considerable.  Twenty  years  ago  you  could  not  find 
in  the  whole  village  change  for  a  coin  of  the  value  of  four 
shillings.  That  one  example  may  be  taken  as  a  not  unfair 
measure  of  the  ratio  which  the  wealth   of  the  country  in 

1  Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Provinces,  pp.  321,  372. 


Agriculture  in  Asia  Minor  191 

Roman  times  bears  to  the  wealth  of  the  present  day.  The 
difference  is  that  between  a  well-cultivated  and  an  ill-culti- 
vated country.  Four  thousand  years  ago  the  peasant  culti- 
vator made  the  one ;  during  the  last  millennium  the  soldier 
and  the  fanatic  have  made  the  other.  The  peasant  cultivator, 
with  peace  and  security  of  tenure,  must  be  called  in  once 
more  to  repair  through  50  or  100  years  of  patient  labour 
the  damage  wrought  by  war  and  misgovernment. 

Let  me  once  more  guard  against  a  possible  misunderstand- 
ing of  my  words.  There  is  a  considerable  amount  of  land  in 
Asia  Minor  which  has  never  passed  out  of  cultivation,  and 
where  the  agricultural  tradition  and  experience  have  been 
kept  alive.  A  population  of  a  good  many  millions  had  to  be 
fed  out  of  the  produce  of  the  country;  and,  if  the  population 
is  less  now,  there  is  more  exported  than  formerly.  The  best 
and  most  favoured  land  has  remained  under  cultivation,  and 
especially  near  the  centres  of  population.  Irrigation  has 
never  ceased  and  is  still  practised  in  certain  districts,  so  that 
the  essential  principles  of  water-engineering  have  never  been 
wholly  forgotten.  The  wheat  of  the  Ushak  region  is  of  re- 
markably fine  quality,  and  I  have  been  told  by  several  in- 
dependent authorities  that  it  is  not  inferior  to  the  finest  in 
the  world.  In  1906,  for  example,  I  travelled  for  an  hour  on 
the  Anatolian  Railway  with  a  Belgian  gentleman  of  long 
experience  in  the  country,  and  he  mentioned  that  the  Ushak 
grain  commanded  a  higher  price  for  certain  purposes  than 
even  the  best  Canadian  wheat.  The  Ushak  district  may  be 
taken  as  a  fair  specimen  of  the  land  of  the  upper  plateau. 
The  figs  of  the  Maeander  valley  (commonly  known  as  Smyrna 
figs,  because  Smyrna  is  the  harbour  of  exportation)  have 
always  been  prized  in  commerce.  Many  other  examples 
might  be  quoted  to  prove  what  may  be  expected  from  the 


192  V.   The  Peasant  God 

restoration  of  agriculture  over  the  vast  areas  where  it  has 
almost  entirely  ceased. 

But  the  revivification  of  this  almost  dead  land  has  begun. 
The  cities  are  becoming  busier.  Industries  are  reviving. 
The  nomad,  even,  is  being  changed  into  the  husbandman  by 
a  process  that  will  be  long  and  painful. 

The  reason  for  the  revivification  of  the  country  is  not  the 
beginning  of  good  government,  for  the  government  is  as  bad 
as  ever  it  was ;  government  always  lags  behind  the  people, 
and  is  forced  onward  or  dragged  onward  by  the  growing 
education  and  insistent  demands  of  the  nation.  The  reason 
lies  in  one  phrase — the  coming  of  the  railways.  Communica- 
tion is  now  becoming  possible  and  fairly  safe ;  the  life-blood 
is  beginning  to  flow  in  the  new  veins ;  the  body  that  was 
dead  has  begun  to  live  again.  Roads  are  improved — though 
the  traveller  fresh  from  Europe  would  be  puzzled  to  detect 
where  the  improvement  lay — and  these  help  to  feed  the  rail- 
ways and  restore  circulation.  With  communication  comes 
trade  and  the  revival  of  old  industries  or  the  introduction  of 
new  ones.  There  has  been  an  immense  increase  in  the  pro- 
duction of  Turkey  carpets,  as  it  has  become  possible  to  send 
them  to  the  coast  at  remunerative  rates.  Towns  where  not 
a  single  carpet-loom  existed  fifteen  years  ago  have  now 
hundreds  of  people  engaged  in  the  manufacture.  Less  than 
twenty  years  ago  a  friend  who  was  engaged  in  the  carpet 
trade,  going  up  the  Ottoman  Railway  as  soon  as  it  was 
extended  to  the  Lycus  valley,  was  struck  by  the  ornamental 
possibilities  of  large,  cheap  kerchiefs  made  at  the  small  town 
of  BuUadann.  He  sent  home  a  few  specimens ;  about  three 
years  later  he  sent  home  70,000  in  one  year,  and  others  were 
also  sending  them  to  London  and  New  York.  The  gather- 
ing and  export  of  liquorice  root,  begun  about  sixty  years 


PLATE  XXIII. 


Zazadin  Khan  near  Konia. 


See  pp.  185-7. 


PLATE  XXIV. 


To  face  p.  192. 


The  Gate  of  the  Virujin-Godde^s  ;  looking  over  the  Limnai. 


Agriculture  in  Asia  Minor  193 

ago,  rapidly  became  the  largest  trade  in  Turkey.  For  a 
long  time  it  has  been  sent  exclusively  to  America  to  sweeten 
tobacco ;  thus  the  Tobacco  Trust  became  the  sole  purchaser ; 
and  it  used  its  position  to  seize  the  entire  trade  a  few  years 
ago. 

In  the  revivification  of  Asia  Minor  the  land  has  to  be 
brought  back  into  a  state  fit  for  cultivation  by  clearance,  by 
irrigation,  by  planting  and  growing  of  trees.  That  means 
an  expenditure  of  uncounted  millions  and  a  long  lapse  of 
time  before  any  return  for  that  vast  expenditure  can  begin. 
Commercially,  it  is  an  impossibility.  No  one  would  risk  his 
money  in  schemes  which  can  at  the  best  only  begin  to  pay 
his  children  or  his  grandchildren  when  population  has  multi- 
plied and  there  is  a  home  market  for  produce ;  and  the  cost 
would  be  so  tremendous  that  the  money  could  not  be  raised. 
This  work  cannot  be  done  by  money.  It  can  only  be  done 
by  the  labour  of  generations  of  men  working  and  improving 
their  own  land  for  the  benefit  of  their  own  families. 

Here  again  I  must  guard  against  misconstruction.  I  do 
not  make  so  foolish  a  statement  as  that  capital  cannot  be 
judiciously  used  to  supplement,  direct  and  facilitate  the  re- 
storation of  agriculture,  or  that  capital  cannot  be  used 
remuneratively  in  the  districts  most  favoured  by  nature, 
where  irrigation  can  be  restored  most  easily.  In  1891  I  saw 
a  great  irrigation  channel  on  the  outer  sides  of  Taurus  not 
very  far  from  Ibriz  as  the  crow  flies,  but  very  far  distant  as 
water  flows;  and  we  crossed  it  on  horseback,  not  without 
difficulty  owing  to  its  depth,  at  a  point  high  on  the  hill 
underneath  the  "strong  castle  of  Hirakla".  This  channel 
was  constructed,  as  I  believe,  several  thousand  years  ago ; 
and  it  carried  an  immense  supply  of  water  many  miles  to  be 
dissipated  at  last  in  uncultivated  lands.     In  1902  I  saw  the 

13 


194  V-    ^^^  Peasant  God 

same  channel  utilised  in  the  middle  of  its  course,  but  farther 
away  from  its  source  than  the  point  under  Hirakla  where 
we  saw  and  crossed  it  in  1891,  by  the  Circassian  people  of  a 
new  village.  The  villagers  had  simply  broken  down  the 
channel  and  turned  the  whole  of  the  water  (far  too  great  a 
supply)  at  random  over  the  country,  making  it  difficult  for 
waggons  to  travel  on  the  road  at  the  point  where  the  water 
crossed  it  The  waste  of  abundant  water  supply  at  some 
points  and  the  dearth  generally  constitute  the  problem  which 
has  to  be  solved.  But  the  elements  of  a  solution  are  for  the 
most  part  present :  only  one  element  is  entirely  wanting,  and 
that  is  security  of  property.  There  is  no  guarantee  that  he 
who  labours  shall  profit.  Without  palace  influence  and 
palace  favour  no  one  can  gather  the  fruits  of  his  toil. 

It  is  known,  for  example,  that  a  good  deal  is  being  done 
on  the  soil  of  Mesopotamia,  which  has  in  great  part  passed 
dnto  the  possession  of  the  Sultan  himself  in  quite  recent 
'times  (as  have  enormous  estates  throughout  the  Turkish 
Empire).  Here  there  is  security  of  property.  Here  the 
rapacity  of  the  tax-gatherer  does  not  step  in  to  seize  the 
fruits  of  labour,  for  no  taxes  are  paid  on  Imperial  property  : 
all  the  profit  belongs  to  the  private  revenue  of  the  Sultan, 
and  the  State  grows  poorer  as  estate  after  estate  has  been 
added  to  his  vast  possessions.  But  many  exaggerated  and 
inaccurate  reports  about  the  facts  in  Mesopotamia  are  current, 
and  have  sometimes  found  their  way  into  high-class  journals 
in  Europe.  The  real  facts  can  be  learned  only  by  patient 
travel  in  that  country,  which  is  unknown  to  me. 

This  process  of  peasant-cultivation  has  recently  been 
carried  out  on  a  small  scale  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Smyrna, 
where  European  influence  is  strong,  and  where  the  enlightened 
administration  of  Kiamil  Pasha  has  been  effective.     Plots  of 


Agriculture  in  Asia  Minor  195 

waste  land  on  the  hillsides  have  been  given  to  peasants  on 
condition  that  good  cultivation  is  applied  to  them,  and  the 
result  has  been  a  great  enlargement  of  the  area  of  productive 
land.  This  improvement  has  taken  place  in  spite  of  the 
notorious  insecurity  of  the  country,  due  to  the  increase  of 
brigandage  caused  by  the  war  in  Arabia.  The  soldiers  for 
that  war  are  drawn  mainly  from  Anatolia.  Arabian  service 
is  regarded  as  equivalent  to  a  sentence  of  death ;  the  con- 
scripts desert  in  numbers,  and  all  deserters,  as  outlaws,  take 
to  the  mountains,  i.e.,  become  brigands.  A  brigand  must  go 
where  there  is  the  opportunity  of  earning  a  livelihood  ; 
therefore  they  abound  near  Smyrna,  where  there  is  industry 
and  money,  while  the  poverty-stricken  inner  country  is  fairly 
safe. 

Among  the  creators  of  those  vineyards  on  the  hillsides 
near  Smyrna  there  existed  a  knowledge  of  method  and  a 
tradition  of  viticulture.  The  skill  gained  through  the  ex- 
perience of  generations  was  put  into  the  work  of  reclamation. 
The  peasant  cultivators  in  this  case  were  merely  the  repre- 
sentatives for  the  moment  of  the  eternal  peasant,  the  em- 
bodiment of  slowly  acquired  knowledge.  The  superhuman 
power,  which  is  above  and  independent  of  the  ephemeral 
mortal  workman,  must  be  brought  to  bear  on  the  land. 
The  old  artist  at  Ibriz  tells  us  so  in  his  sculpture.  The 
peasant-god,  the  divine  nature,  that  is  what  reclaims  the 
soil  for  the  use  of  mankind.  It  is  a  work  of  the  race,  not 
of  the  individual. 

To  knowledge  must  be  added  labour,  the  toil  of  genera- 
tions. Money  is  here  of  no  avail.  This  work  is  antecedent 
to  money :  the  foundations  have  to  be  made  on  which 
civilised  life,  with  intercommunication,  trade,  and  money  as 
the  common  measure  of  value  and  the  instrument  of  exchange, 


196  V.    The  Peasant  God 

may  be  built  up.  In  the  savage  state,  or  to  the  civilised  man 
on  a  desert  island,  money  is  valueless,  and  much  building  is 
needed  before  it  can  acquire  value. 

That  truth  is  sometimes  not  appreciated  in  discussions 
on  this  subject.  Recently  I  chanced  to  read  an  article  in 
a  popular  magazine^  on  the  crofters  in  the  Highlands  of 
Scotland,  in  which  the  writer  proved  that  the  crofter  system 
was  more  expensive  than  the  landlord  system.  Draining 
the  croft  would  cost  ;^I50,  building  a  house  £'>po.  The 
crofter  would  have  to  pay  the  bank  five  per  cent,  for  this 
money :  the  landlord  could  borrow  it  at  four  per  cent.  The 
increased  annual  burden  was  fatal  to  the  crofter-system. 
The  draining  and  irrigation  of  the  land  of  Anatolia  cost  no 
money  :  it  cost  the  work  of  generations :  it  was  paid  by  the 
lives  of  men,  and  not  by  coin  of  the  realm.  The  restoration 
of  agriculture  can  be  made  and  paid  for  only  in  the  old  way. 
Unless  the  crofter  can  make  personal  work  serve  instead  of 
money,  he  and  his  system  are  certainly  doomed.  The 
peasant-god  had  no  bank  from  which  to  borrow  at  five  per 
cent. 

Thus  we  have  briefly  described  how  the  country  of  Asia 
Minor  was  made  by  long  hard  labour  suitable  for  agriculture, 
and  how  the  agriculture  was  destroyed  and  the  land  allowed 
in  great  part  to  relapse  into  its  primitive  state.  The  restora- 
tion of  the  Anatolian  land  to  agriculture  can  take  place  only 
in  the  same  way  as  the  creation  of  agriculture  was  originally 
achieved,  by  slow  patient  labour  directed  by  intelligence 
through  a  succession  of  generations.  The  process  may  be 
facilitated  by  utilising  the  other  natural  products  of  the 
country,  especially  the  mineral  wealth :  an  increasing  popu- 
lation will  need  a  larger  supply  of  food.     But  to  the  writer 

*  Blackwood's  Magazine,  August,  1906. 


Agriculture  in  Asia  Minor  197 

the  special  interest  of  this  investigation  lies  in  the  connection 
with  religion.  Religion  led  the  way  and  fixed  the  rules  for 
the  creation  of  agriculture ;  and  it  has  degenerated  along 
with  the  agriculture  and  civilisation  of  the  land.  The 
connection  is  apt  to  escape  notice  among  modern  scholars, 
because  in  European  countries  a  widening  gulf  separates 
religion  from  practical  life,  and  there  has  thus  been  induced 
a  habit  of  thinking  that  the  history  of  religion  proceeds 
apart  from  and  unconnected  with  the  development  or  de- 
terioration of  civilisation.  But  this  is  a  grave  error.  The 
development  of  a  nation's  life  is  in  the  long  run  the  history 
of  its  religion. 

Note. — As  bearing  on  the  permanent  sanctity  attached  to 
certain  sites  in  Asia  Minor  through  all  mutations  of  the 
external  form  of  religion,  I  use  this  opportunity  of  correcting 
my  description  of  the  sacred  place  on  the  Limnai  {Cities  of 
St.  Paul,  p.  293).  This  place,  still  regarded  as  holy  and 
made  the  scene  of  an  annual  panegyris  in  September  in 
honour  of  the  Virgin  Mother  of  God,  was,  beyond  all 
question,  once  a  sanctuary  of  the  Virgin  Artemis  of  the 
Limnai.  There  is  at  this  spot  both  a  small  cave  high  up 
in  the  rock  (which  here  drops  steeply  down  to  the  lake),  and 
near  it  on  the  shore  a  very  curious  great  arch  of  rock, 
apparently  natural,  through  which  one  looks  out  over  the 
lake.  At  the  panegyris  mass  is  celebrated  in  the  cave, 
which  has  a  rude  niche  like  a  roughly  hewn  apse  to  the 
West,  not  East ;  this  apse  has  been  partly  destroyed.  But 
the  natural  phenomenon  of  the  arch  probably  originated  the 
sanctity  of  the  spot, 

I  am  indebted  to  Miss  Gertrude  Bell  for  the  description 
and  for  the  photograph  of  the  archway,  Plate  XXIX. 

The  question  arises,  whether  this  natural  doorway  is  the 


198  V.    The  Peasant  God 

Dipylon,  which  on  one  theory  was  the  sacred  place  of  Great 
Artemis,  the  goddess  of  the  Limnai.  In  the  Tekmoreian 
inscriptions  the  sacred  ceremony,  according  to  the  restoration 
of  an  inscription  printed  in  my  paper  on  the  subject,^  took 
place  in  the  Dipylon.  Now  Dipylon  strictly  implies  two 
doors ;  but  it  might  indicate  a  temple  like  that  of  Janus,  a 
gateway  with  its  two  faces  (as  stated  in  Studies  in  the  History 
of  the  Eastern  Provinces,  p.  349). 

^Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Provinces,  p.  319:  iy  t]<JI  Siirv]K<p. 
On  p.  349,  I  mentioned  another  restoration  t]^  5nrv[pif>  without  ei>  (which 
occurred  to  me  too  late  to  be  discussed  on  p.  319).  This  restoration  is  ad- 
vocated by  Mr.  A.  J.  Reinacb  (who  does  not  observe  that  I  suggested  it)  with 
weighty  but  not  quite  convincing  arguments.  Perhaps  the  photograph  here 
given  may  turn  the  scale  in  favour  of  the  old  reading :  though  after  thinking 
of  Sivvpcf)  I  long  preferred  it. 


VI. 

THE    RELIGION    OF    THE    HITTITE 
SCULPTURES  AT  BOGHAZ-KEUI. 


VI. 

THE   RELIGION  OF  THE  HITTITE  SCULP- 
TURES AT  BOGHAZ-KEUI. 

[Note. — The  following  paper  is  left  practically  as  it  was 
written  in  the  year  1881,  with  only  some  slight  verbal 
changes.  The  writer  had  not  the  opportunity  of  correcting 
the  proofs  before  the  paper  was  published  in  the  Journal  of 
the  Royal  Asiatic  Society^  1882.  The  view  which  is  here 
taken  of  the  religion  of  Asia  Minor  has  not  been  universally 
accepted  ;  and  several  scholars  would  reject  the  idea  that  so 
important  a  part  in  the  cultus  belonged  to  the  feminine  ele- 
ment. On  the  other  hand,  those  who  maintain  this  view 
have  developed  it  in  much  greater  detail  than  appears  in  this 
short  paper.  But  it  seems  better  to  reproduce  the  original 
statement  of  the  writer's  views,  partly  because  sentences  and 
paragraphs  from  this  inaccessible  paper  have  been  quoted  in 
several  works,  partly  because  of  a  recent  discovery  in  Ephesus. 
Mr.  Cecil  Smith,  in  publishing  the  remarkable  ivory  statuettes 
found  by  Mr.  Hogarth  in  the  foundations  of  the  ancient  temple 
of  Ephesian  Artemis,  expresses  the  opinion  ^  that  one  of  them 
represents  the  Eunuch  priest  of  the  goddess ;  he  compares  it 
with  the  priest  who  so  frequently  appears  in  the  rock-sculp- 
tures of  Boghaz-Keui,  and  he  supports  by  new  arguments  the 
interpretation  of  that  figure  which  is  stated  in  the  present 
article.     The  support  accorded  by  so  judicious  and  so  com- 

^  Archaic  Artemisia  of  Ephesus,  p.  173. 
(201) 


202  VI.   The  Religion  of 

petent  an  authority  is  a  sufficient  justification  for  reprinting^ 
a  paper  written  twenty-seven  years  ago. 

This  paper  contains  the  germ  of  many  of  the  writer's 
subsequent  speculations  about  early  Anatolian  religion.  It 
has  been  developed,  improved,  carried  out  in  more  detail  in 
those  later  speculations ;  but  it  needs  no  change,  for  it  simply 
expresses  the  facts  as  they  forced  themselves  once  and  for 
ever  on  the  writer's  mind.  I  do  not  mean  that  I  would  now 
maintain  in  every  detail  the  opinions  here  expressed  ;  and  I 
doubt  if  I  should  now  have  courage  to  state  so  positively 
the  general  theory  which  is  here  formulated.  But  at  least 
nothing  has  been  discovered  to  make  me  withdraw  from  the 
rather  bold  position  which  I  then  took  up.  The  paper  made 
no  attempt  to  explain  the  sculptures  as  a  whole.  Probably, 
if  it  had  done  so,  one  would  not  have  been  able  to  reprint  it. 
But,  as  that  old  article  was  written  under  the  first  inspiration 
of  a  visit  to  the  site,  and  described  what  I  thought  I  saw  in 
certain  parts  of  those  wonderful  sculptures,  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  place  before  the  reader  the  record  of  the  impression 
produced  by  them. 

The  range  of  illustration  is  small,  because  the  writer  at 
that  time  had  seen  hardly  any  of  the  Hittite  sculptures,  and 
had  had  very  little  practice  in  estimating  the  character  of 
rock-sculpture.  The  visit  to  Boghaz-Keui  and  Euyuk 
occurred  on  the  first  journey  which  I  made  in  the  interior 
of  the  country,  about  thirteen  months  after  first  landing  in 
Asia  Minor.  With  twenty-eight  years'  experience  I  should 
now  be  much  better  able  to  profit  by  studying  the  rock- 
monuments  than  I  was  then.  I  may  recall  with  deepest 
gratitude  the  debt  which  I  owe  to  the  late  General  Sir 
Charles  Wilson  for  having  invited  me  to  accompany  him  on 
this  journey.     But  his  official  duties  did  not  permit  him  to 


the  Hittite  Sculptures  at  Boghaz-Keui       203 

remain  at  any  place  except  modem  centres  of  population 
and  government,  hence  we  had  only  a  hurried  view  of  the 
great  city  and  the  rock-sanctuary.] 

M.  Perrot  has  rightly  argued  that  the  wonderful  rock- 
sculptures  near  Boghaz-Keui  are  a  series  of  religious  re- 
presentations.i  But,  while  his  account  is  in  general  accurate 
and  sympathetic,  I  believe  that  further  progress  in  the 
interpretation  of  their  meaning  is  hindered  by  one  misconcep- 
tion on  his  part :  many  of  the  figures  which  he  considers 
male  seemed  to  me  undoubtedly  female.  I  came  to  Boghaz- 
Keui  fresh  from  the  perusal  at  Ancyra  of  the  only  copy  of 
M.  Perrot's  Voyage  Archeologique  that  exists  in  Asia  Minor; 
but,  after  two  hours'  examination,  Sir  C.  Wilson  and  I 
both  came  independently  to  the  same  conclusion,  that  the 
majority  of  the  figures  were  female.^  We  were  fortunately 
able  to  remain  a  second  day,  and  I  spent  about  five  hours 
examining  every  figure  in  this  regard.  In  many  cases  the 
sex  is  quite  uncertain ;  but  only  a  few  are  certainly  male, 
and  a  large  number  are  certainly  female.  On  the  whole,  I 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  sculptures  were  the  monu- 
ment of  a  religion  in  which  the  female  sex  played  a  much 
more  important  part  than  the  male,  and  that  in  various  cases 
where  the  sex  was  doubtful,  the  probability  lay  on  the  female 

^  These  notes  are  printed  solely  from  the  wish  to  call  attention  to  a  remark- 
able series  of  sculptures,  which  have  as  yet-been  almost  completely  neglected. 
In  our  hurried  visit,  1881,  there  was  no  opportunity  of  examining  them 
sufficiently.  Now  Herr  Hermann  has  been  charged  with  the  duty  of  bringing 
casts  to  the  Berlin  Museum,  and  there  is  every  reason  to  hope  that  the 
sculptures  will  soon  be  accessible  to  study.  [This  hope  was  only  partly 
realised.] 

^[I  may  add  that  the  impression  was  produced  on  both  of  us,  quite  inde- 
pendently and  unexpectedly,  of  something  characteristically  feminine  in  the 
face ;  this  impression  is  not  conveyed  by  the  photographs,  where  shadows 
and  angle  of  view  exercise  too  strong  influence ;  see  also  concluding  note  to 
this  article.] 


204  VI.   The  Religion  of 

side.  Bachofen  {das  Mutterrecht\  amid  many  untenable 
opinions  and  crude  hypotheses,  has  shown  how  great  an 
influence  belonged  to  the  women  in  Asia  Minor,  and  this 
influence  is  of  course  creative  of  or  dependent  on  reh'gious 
sanction  :  and  Gelzer  has  proved  that  the  Lydian  religion 
attached  special  importance  to  the  female  (Rhein.  Mus., 
XXXV.,  p.  516).  The  character  of  the  sculptures  at  Pteria  is 
therefore  in  accordance  with  the  analogy  of  Asia  Minor. 

Two  facts  suggest  a  false  idea  as  to  the  sex  of  the  figures. 
In  the  first  place,  the  great  mass  of  the  figures  fall  into  two 
long  lines  directed  towards  a  central  point.  The  series  of 
figures  on  the  left  is  headed  by  three  gods,  that  on  the  right 
by  a  goddess ;  almost  all  the  figures  on  the  right  are  clearly 
female,  several  of  those  on  the  left  are  equally  clearly  male. 
Hence  the  idea  arose  that  the  figures  of  the  right  are  female, 
of  the  left  male.  But  this  idea  cannot  be  carried  out  com- 
pletely. The  goddess  who  leads  the  procession  on  the  right 
is  followed  immediately  by  a  youthful  god  standing  on  a 
leopard ;  and  in  the  series  to  the  left  there  are  several  female 
figures. 

In  the  second  place,  the  wearing  of  the  short  tunic  has  been 
generally  regarded  as  proving  that  more  than  half  the  figures 
are  male.  Closer  examination  makes  this  doubtful.  Most 
of  the  figures  are  armed,  and  it  is  obvious  that  if  women  are 
going  to  fight  they  cannot  wear  long  sweeping  robes. 
Female  warriors  were  one  of  the  most  distinctive  character- 
istics of  the  religion  of  Asia  Minor  and  particularly  of 
Cappadocia ;  and  I  should  not  hesitate  to  consider  the 
twelve  armed  figures  ^  in  the  narrow  passage  opposite  the 
most  mysterious  and  perhaps  the  most  sacred  figures  of  the 
whole  to  be  Amazons. 

'  Perrot,  Voyage  Archeologique,  pi.  52. 


the  Hittite  Sculptures  at  Boghaz-Keui      205 

All  that  occurs  on  earth  must  have  its  prototype  and  its 
origin  in  similar  divine  phenomena.  Accordingly,  the  idea 
of  women  as  fighting  and  as  warlike,  finds  its  religious 
justification  in  the  warlike  goddess  who  was  one  of  the  chief 
manifestations  of  divinity ;  and  the  masculine  air,  the  short 
dress,  the  flatness  of  the  bosom,  are  quite  in  the  spirit  of  a 
religion,  of  which  it  is  characteristic  to  raise  itself  above  the 
distinction  of  sex.  Its  essence  ^  lies  in  the  adoration  under 
various  forms  of  the  life  of  nature,  that  life  subject  apparently 
to  death,  yet  never  dying,  but  reproducing  itself  in  new  forms, 
different  and  yet  the  same  This  perpetual  self-identity 
under  varying  forms,  this  annihilation  of  death  through  the 
power  of  self-reproduction,  was  the  object  of  the  enthusiastic 
worship  of  Asia  Minor  with  all  its  self-abandonment,  its 
periods  of  complete  immersion  in  the  divine  nature  and  of 
superiority  to  all  moral  distinctions  and  human  ties,  its 
mixture  of  obscene  symbolism  and  the  most  sublime  truths. 
The  mystery  of  self-reproduction,  of  self-identity  amid 
diversity,  is  the  key  to  explain  all  the  repulsive  legends 
that  cluster  round  that  worship,  and  all  the  manifold 
representations  or  embodiments  of  the  divine  life  that  are 
carved  on  the  rocks  of  Boghaz-Keui  [and  Frahtin,  and  the 
palace  walls  of  Euyuk].  The  parent  is  the  child,  the  mother 
is  the  daughter,  the  father  the  son;  they  seem  to  men 
different ;  religion  teaches  that  they  are  the  same,  that  death 
and  birth  are  only  two  aspects  of  one  idea,  and  that  the 
birth  is  only  the  completion  of  the  incomplete  apparent 
death. 

1 1  must  here  assume  unproved  that  theory  of  the  character  of  Anatolian 
religion  which  seems  required  by  the  facts  of  its  history.  [It  is  stated  more 
fully  in  the  article  of  "  The  Religion  of  Greece  and  Asia  Minor  "  in  Hastings' 
Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  v.,  p.  no  ff.] 


2o6  VI.   The  Religion  of 

One  of  the  central  ideas  in  the  religion  is  that  the  dis- 
tinction of  sex  is  not  ultimate,  but  only  an  appearance,  and 
not  a  real  element  of  the  divine  life.  In  its  essence  that 
life  is  self-complete,  self-sufficient,  continually  existent ;  the 
idea  of  death  comes  in  with  the  idea  of  sex,  of  incomplete- 
ness, of  diversity.  The  goddess  is  the  earth,  the  Mother ; 
the  god  is  the  Heaven,  the  Father;  the  ultimate  divinity 
comprehends  both  heaven  and  earth,  both  god  and  goddess. 
Hence  arises  the  widespread  Anatolian  idea  of  the  andro- 
gynous god — an  idea  which  appears  in  Greek  art  as  the 
Hermaphrodite — merely  a  rude  symbolical  expression  of  the 
unreality  of  sexual  distinction.  Hence  also  arises  the  ten- 
dency to  confuse  or  to  obliterate  the  distinction  of  sex  in  the 
gods,  to  represent  the  goddess  with  the  character  of  the 
man,  the  god  as  womanly  and  effeminate ;  while  the  priest 
of  the  religion  must  be  neither  male  nor  female. 

The  wearing  of  bracelets  and  earrings  is  of  course  not  pe- 
culiar to  women,  but  has  been  practised  in  many  countries 
by  men.  In  the  rock-sculpture  at  Ibriz  in  southern  Cap- 
padocia^  both  the  husbandman-god  and  the  bearded  king 
wear  earrings ;  so  also  did  Lydian  men.^  But  in  the  sculptures 
of  Boghaz-Keui  and  Euyuk  I  could  not  find  them  on  any 
figure  certainly  male  with  one  exception,  and  this  exception 
furnishes  a  presumption  that  they  were  in  northern  Cap- 
padocia  a  feminine  ornament.  This  is  a  figure  that  occurs 
three  times  at  Boghaz-Keui,  and  twice  at  Euyuk,^  and  M. 
Perrot  rightly  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  it  must  repre- 
sent the  high  priest ;  and  we  can  easily  recognise  in  it  the 

'  See  above,  p.  174. 

^Xenophon,  Anabasis,  iii.,  i,  31. 

■^  Perrot,  pi.  42,  47,  50,  51,  56.  Euyuk  is  five  hours  north  of  Pteria.  Here, 
out  of  the  side  of  one  of  the  large  artificial  "mounds  of  Semiramis,"  appear 
the  doorway  and  front,  covered  with  sculptures,  of  some  great  palace  or  temple. 


the  Hittite  Sculptures  at  Boghaz-Keui      207 

effeminate  character,  the  soft  outh'nes,  the  long  sweeping 
dress,  and  the  ornaments  of  the  eunuch  high  priest,  Archi- 
gallos,  so  well  known  in  the  cultus  of  Cybele.^  This  view, 
to  which  M.  Perrot  inclines,  is  made  quite  certain  by  the 
subject  of  the  following  slab  at  Euyuk,  which  was  not  seen 
by  him  :  Sir  C.  Wilson  got  the  villagers  to  turn  over  a  block, 
and  disclosed  one  of  the  most  interesting  scenes  of  the  whole 
series. 

The  accompanying  plan  of  the  entrance  to  the  palace  at 
Euyuk  shows  the  position  of  this  slab,  which  is  lettered  Z. 

It  is  on  the  right  hand  as  one  enters  the  great  doorway, 

guarded  by  the  two  Sphinxes,  9  and  10.    The  two  sculptured 

blocks  on  the  left  side  of  the  entrance,  7  and  8,  are  each 

6  feet  6  inches  long ;  so  that  the  length 

of  the   entrance  way  is  exactly   13  feet.  9  10 

Now  Z  is  7  feet  3  inches  long,  and  the 

adjoining  block,  1 1,  is  5  feet  9  inches  long,  '  ' 

so  that  these  two  exactly  fill  up  the  right         7  |  [11 

side  of  the  entrance  way.     It  is  remark- 

■"  Fig.  I, 

able  that  there  is  no  sculpture  on  the  long 
side  of  block  1 1  ;  while  on  its  short  end,  which  forms  the  first 
slab  of  the  series  on  the  right  hand  front  wall,  a  seated 
deity  (Perrot,  pi.  66)  is  carved.  Both  the  blocks  7  and  8 
on  the  left  side  of  the  entrance  way  are  adorned  with 
reliefs ;  one  of  those  on  the  right  side  is  carved,  and  the 
other  is  left  plain.  I  know  no  explanation  of  the  apparent 
anomaly. 

At  the  right  hand  of  the  scene  on  slab  Z  a  deity  sits  with 
the  feet  resting  on  a  footstool,  one  in  front  of  the  other ;  the 
figure  is  much  worn,  but  in  all  that  remains  it  is  exactly  the 

'  On  the  Archigallos  in  Phrygian  religion  see  Studies  in  the  History  and  Art 
of  the  Eastern  Roman  Provinces,  pp.  246  f.,  343, 


2o8 


VI.    The  Religion  of 


same  as  the  seated  goddess  on  pi.  66,  and  in  the  accompanying 
drawing  it  is  restored  accordingly.  Towards  this  deity  a 
procession  of  four  figures  advances,  headed  by  the  priest. 
His  dress  is  the  same  as  in  all  the  scenes  where  Perrot  has 
engraved  him  :  in  his  right  hand  he,  as  usual,  holds  the  long 
curved  staff  {lituus\  while  with  the  left  he  pours  from  an 
oinochoe  a  libation,  which  falls  on  the  front  foot  of  the 
seated  deity.  Behind  him  is  the  priestess,  with  her  hands  in 
the  position  that  seems  to  be  characteristic  of  women  in  the 
art  of  Cappadocia.  The  right  hand  holds  out  some  round 
object  in  front  of  her  face,  the  left  hand  carries  some  object 


'.-N 


Fig.  2. 

to  her  mouth.  She  is  dressed  in  the  same  long  sweeping 
dress  which  she  wears  in  other  scenes  on  these  monuments, 
but  it  is  now  impossible  to  tell  whether  she  wore  earrings. 
Behind  her  come  two  other  figures,  which  are  much  worn ; 
they  were  dressed  in  short  tunics  and  cloaks  which  hang 
so  as  to  cover  one  leg  and  leave  the  advanced  leg  bare.  The 
figures  at  the  extremities  of  this  slab  have  been  injured  by 
the  small  stones  on  which  it  has  fallen  ;  but  fortunately  the 
two  in  the  middle  have  not  suffered  so  much.  From  the 
position  of  these  two  figures  it  is  not  open  to  doubt  that 
they  are  the  chief  priest  and  priestess  of  the  cultus. 


the  Hittite  Sculptures  at  Boghaz-Keui       209 

The  same  view  is  suggested  by  the  scene  on  pi.  56 
(Perrot),  in  which  also  the  subject  seems  to  be  a  procession 
approaching  the  divine  presence.  An  altar  of  peculiar  shape 
is  placed  in  front  of  a  small  figure  of  a  bull,  evidently  a 
religious  symbol,  standing  on  a  high  pedestal.^  The  same 
two  priestly  figures,  wearing  the  same  dress,  approach  the 
altar :  the  priest  carries  in  his  right  hand  the  lituus,  and  the 
priestess  wears  earrings.  [Three  altars  of  this  peculiar  mush- 
room form  have  been  discovered  at  Emir-Ghazi  (seventy-five 
miles  east  of  Iconium),  which  is  probably  the  Kases  or  Kasis 
of  Byzantine  writers,  the  Khasbia  of  Ptolemy ;  but  unfortun- 
ately two  of  them  are  much  mutilated.  An  altar  of  similar 
form  appears  twice  in  the  rock -sculptures  at  Frahtin  ;  but  here 
the  circular  basis  is  not  plain  (as  at  Euyuk),  nor  surrounded 
with  zones  of  hieroglyphics  (as  at  Emir-Ghazi),  but  ribbed 
obliquely,  like  the  dress  of  the  priestess  from  the  waist 
downwards  in  the  two  annexed  figures.] 

At  Boghaz-Keui  the  priest  is  seen  three  times  (pis.  42,  47, 
50,  51,  Perrot).^  In  Fig.  3  he  is  represented  walking  beside 
a  tall  figure,  whose  arm  is  affectionately  twined  round  his 
neck.  Perrot  would  fain  make  this  pair  a  man  and  woman, 
but  is  obliged  to  acknowledge  that  the  little  figure  is  clearly 
male ;  and  he  suggests  that  they  represent  the  king  and  the 
priest  grouped  as  a  pair.  To  our  eyes  the  tall  figure  is  as 
clearly  female  as  the  small  figure  is  male.  It  is  in  high 
relief,  and  the  face  stands  out  from  the  rock  with  an  ex- 
quisitely delicate  contour — bold,  determined,  and  yet  femi- 
nine.    The  figure  is  far  the  finest  of  all  the  series,  and  looks 

1  [Many  bronzes  representing  a  bull  standing  on  a  raised  platform  or  altar 
have  been  found  in  other  Hittite  sites  (Chantre,  Mission  en  Cappadoce,  and 
unpublished  examples  elsewhere).  On  Frahtin  see  the  Pre-Hellenic  Monu- 
ments of  Cappadocia  in  Maspero's  Recueil  de  Travaux,  etc.,  vol.  xiv.] 

'^  Perrot,  pis.  50,  51. 

14 


2IO 


VI.    The  Religion  of 


almost  like  the  creation  of  a  different  art     In  the  midst  ot 
rude  work  and  inartistic  symbolism,  it  recalled  to  me  the 


Fig.  3. 
Amazons  of  the  Maussolleum  frieze.^     It  is  evidently  the 
NiKTj^opo^  0ed  of  an  inscription  of  Comana  {Journ.  Philol., 

^  One  who  looks  at  the  plates  in  Perrot,  50  and  51,  will  at  once  say  that  I 
am  wrong  on  this  point,  and  that  the  figure  is  certainly  male.    But,  before 


the  Hittite  Sculptures  at  Boghaz-Keui      211 

1882,  p.  147),  the  warlike  goddess  who  was  characteristic  of 
the  Asia  Minor  worship.  Like  the  Lydian  Omphale,  she 
bears  the  weapons,  and  her  male  companion  is  the  effeminate 
and  unwarlike  god,  Heracles,  sunk  temporarily  to  be  a 
woman. 

This  companion  is  Atys,  at  once  her  favourite  and  her 
priest,  her  son  and  her  paramour.  The  god  as  the  first 
priest  was  the  type  of  all  succeeding  priests,  who  at  Pessinus 
bore  his  name  as  an  official  title :  each  priest  wore  the  in- 
signia, and  was  said  to  imitate  the  self-mutilation  of  the  god. 
That  priests  and  priestesses  should  wear  the  dress,  bear  the 
name,  and  represent  the  personality,  of  the  god  deity  whom 
they  served,  was  common  in  Greek  religion  also.  The  priests 
of  Bacchus  were  Bacchoi,  the  female  celebrants  Bacchai ; 
the  priests  of  Sabos  or  Sabazios  were  also  called  Saboi ;  and 
many  other  examples  may  be  found. 

The  frequency  with  which  the  priest  appears  in  these 
religious  sculptures  shows  how  great  was  his  importance  in 
the  religion,  and  his  influence  among  the  people.  He  was 
the  embodiment  of  the  god  living  always  among  his  people 
and  explaining  to  them  always  through  the  oracle,  which 
was  a  never-failing  accompaniment  of  the  Anatolian  religion, 
the  will  of  heaven.  This  is  in  complete  agreement  with 
all  that  we  know  of  political  organisation  and  government 
among  the  people  of  Asia  Minor,  before  they  were  affected 
by  Greek  influence.  Either  the  priesthood  comprehended 
the  kinghood  in  itself  and  exercised  supreme  power,  or  the 
priest  was  at  least  second  to  the  king  in  dignity  and  rank 

judging,  one  should  bear  in  mind  that  the  photograph  on  pi.  51  is  useless,  and 
that  the  drawing  on  pi.  50,  being  made  by  one  who  thought  the  figure  male, 
loses  all  the  feminine  character. 


212  VI.    The  Religion  of 

and  social  powers.^  The  same  thought  is  suggested  by 
the  scene  on  pi.  47  (Perrot).  Here  the  priest  is  represented 
as  of  superhuman  size,  standing  with  his  feet  on  two  large 
objects,  in  shape  like  cones  with  rounded  points ;  these  are 
quite  different  in  character  and  shape  from  the  mountains  on 
which  the  gods  stand.  The  priest  is  evidently  here  portrayed 
as  the  apparent  god,  co-ordinated  with  the  other  manifesta- 
tions of  the  divine  nature  on  the  rocks  around,  smaller  in 
size  than  the  greatest  of  these,  but  larger  than  many  of  them. 

In  all  the  three  cases  where  this  figure  occurs  at  Boghaz- 
Keui,  it  is  accompanied  by  a  remarkable  symbol :  this  symbol 
is  not  always  the  same,  but  the  three  are  only  slight  modi- 
fications of  one  type.  The  variations  are  doubtless  of  great 
importance,  and  will  in  time  perhaps  throw  much  light  on 
the  scenes  in  which  they  occur.  They  are  all  composed  of 
symbols,  such  as  occur  in  the  hieroglyphic  inscriptions  that  are 
characteristic  of  the  rock-sculptures  of  Asia  Minor,  so  placed 
together  as  to  form  something  like  a  naiskos,  bounded  on 
each  side  by  two  Ionic  columns :  the  whole  being  crowned 
by  the  winged  solar  disk. 

[Fig.  4  shows  an  ivory  statuette  found  under  the  temple 
of  Artemis  at  Ephesus,  and  beautifully  reproduced,  both 
plain  and  in  colours,  in  Excavations  at  Ephesus  (Hogarth 
and  others,  1908),  Plates  XXI.  2  and  XXIV.  7,  11.  Mr. 
Cecil  Smith,  on  p.  173  of  that  work,  recognises  in  it  the 
Megabyzos  or  Eunuch  chief-priest  of  the  goddess.  He 
mentions  that  "  Newton  in  his  Essays,  p.  230,  has  drawn 
attention  to  the  quasi-regal  supremacy  of"  this  priest.  Of 
the  ten  complete  human  figures  in  ivory  found  under  the 
temple,  "no  less  than  nine  are  undoubtedly  statuettes  of 

'Str.,p.  557,  672  [where  kinghood  and  priesthood  were  united,  mutilation 
of  the  priest  could  only  be  a  fiction  ;  and  there  are  some  traces  of  such  fictions, 
as  when  the  Archigallos  is  distinct  from  the  priestl. 


the  Hittite  Sculptures  at  Boghaz-Keui      213 


women  ".^  The  tenth  is  this  figure  of  the  Megabyzos,  which 
has  some  male  characteristics,  while  "the  sleek,  rounded 
forms  of  the  face,  the  arrangement  of 
the  hair,  and  the  long-sleeved  chiton, 
would  naturally  suggest  a  woman  ".  I 
must  add  that,  in  spite  of  the  sleek 
forms,  the  type  of  the  face,  with  its 
thick  features  and  "the  broad  fleshy 
nose,"  seems  to  me  to  mark  the  figure 
as  male  even  more  clearly  than  the 
delicate  and  spiritual  type  of  the  warrior 
figures  at  Boghaz-Keui  stamp  them  as 
female.  "  The  chain  which  hangs  round 
his  neck  is  probably  his  chain  of  office  '"' 
.  ,  .  the  curious  fez-like  cap,  the  broad 
decorated  belt  and  the  mode  of  dress- 
ing the  hair,  with  a  plait  looped  in 
front  of  each  ear,  may  be  regarded  as 
part  of  the  same  ceremonial  costume," 
The  slight  maeander  ornament  on  the 
lower  part  of  the  dress  may  be  com- 
pared and  contrasted  with  the  elabor- 
ate ornamentation  on  the  priest's  dress 
at  Ibriz.] 

It  follows  from  the  nature  of  this 
religion  that  on  the  rocks  of  Boghaz- 
Keui  we  must  expect  to  find  in  the 
diversity  of  divine  personages  many 
various  manifestations  of  the  one  divine 


Fig. 


^[The  preponderance  of  the  female  element  in  hieratic  representations, 
alike  at  Ephesus  and  at  Boghaz-Keui,  is  noteworthy.] 

2  [Mr.  Smith  compares  the  position  of  the  hand  grasping  the  chain  with  a 
statuette  published  by  Chantre,  Mission  en  Cappadoce,  p.  151.] 


214  VI-    ^^^  Religion  of 

life.  The  attempt  to  explain  them  must  begin  by  studying 
the  cases  where  the  same  figure  is  repeated  with  slight 
variations,  and  must  have  at  its  disposal  either  the  original 
sculptures  or  satisfactory  representations  of  them.  The 
photographs  published  by  M.  Perrot,  welcome  as  they  are, 
cannot  be  made  the  basis  of  a  satisfactory  discussion. 
In  every  figure  I  could  see  numberless  details  which  are 
quite  invisible  on  the  photographs  :  the  light  is  very  bad 
among  the  rocks,  the  apparatus  often  can  not  be  put  at  the 
proper  position,  and  nothing  except  either  a  series  of  careful 
drawings,  made  with  the  help  of  photographs  and  studied 
along  with  photographs,  or  a  complete  set  of  casts,  can  supply 
the  place  of  the  originals. 

The  head  of  the  series  of  figures  on  the  right  is  a  female 
deity  standing  on  a  lion,  which  has  its  feet  placed  on  four 
mountains.  On  her  head  is  the  turreted  crown,  which  was 
in  Greece  the  distinguishing  mark  of  the  Asian  goddess 
Cybele,  but  which,  from  its  frequent  occurrence  at  Pteria, 
can  hardly  be  more  than  the  mark  of  womanhood,  of  the 
female  sex  in  its  properly  female  function  and  not  as  setting 
aside  the  distinction  between  male  and  female.  She  holds 
her  hands  in  the  attitude  which  is  characteristic  of  women 
in  the  art  of  Cappadocia ;  the  right  hand  raises  a  symbol  in 
front  of  her,  the  left  holds  some  object  towards  her  mouth. 
She  is  followed  by  a  youthful  god  standing  on  a  leopard, 
whose  feet  also  are  planted  on  mountains.  In  this  pair  one 
must  recognise  the  mother  and  son,  Cybele  and  Atys  in  one 
of  his  manifestations,  Demeter  and  Dionysos.  The  leopard 
on  which  the  god  stands  is  the  favourite  animal  of  the  Greek 
Dionysos.  A  few  other  examples  of  the  connection  between 
the  sculptures  of  Pteria  and  the  religion  of  Phrygia  and 
Lydia  have  been  given  in  Journ.  Hell.  Sl?{d.,  1882,  pp.  40-46. 


the  Hittite  Sctdptures  at  Boghaz-Keui      215 

But  few  of  the  figures  on  these  rocks  have  their  character 
so  plainly  expressed  as  these  examples ;  and  without  better 
material  for  study,  the  whole  set  must  remain  unexplained, 

\Note. — I  have  in  this  reprint  avoided  using  the  name 
Pteria  for  the  city  at  Boghaz-Keui,  not  because  I  think  the 
identification  (accepted  in  the  article  originally  and  in  my 
Historical  Geography,  pp.  29,  31,  etc.)  wrong,  but  because 
the  form  of  the  name  is  uncertain.  Herodotus  uses  the 
expressions  tt^v  nreptrju,  ttjv  ^E^ea-irjv,  in  adjectival  form. 
Many  others  have  suggested  that  Ptara,  the  Lycian  city- 
name  (Patara  in  Greek),  is  the  noun ;  and  this  seems  highly 
probable ;  but  the  further  suggestion  that  Ptara  means 
"  city  "  seems  not  so  acceptable.  Perhaps  Ptara,  like  Ptagia 
in  Pisidia,  is  connected  with  the  divine  name  Pta  (in  Greek 
Meter  Ipta),  which  was  used  in  Eastern  Lydia  :  see  Studies 
in  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Provinces,  p.  369. 

That  Croesus,  when  he  crossed  the  Halys,  would  march 
direct  on  the  capital  of  his  enemy,  may  be  assumed  as 
certain.  Now  Boghaz-Keui  is  marked  by  its  size  and 
remains  as  the  capital  of  a  great  Anatolian  Empire:  see 
Historical  Geography,  p.  28,  and  the  first  part  of  the  article 
here  reprinted  ;  also  above,  p.  127.] 


Fig.  5.— The  Apollo  of  Lystra :  a  third-century  votive  relief  (see  p.  167  f.). 


VII. 

THE  MORNING  STAR  AND  THE  CHRON- 
OLOGY OF  THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST. 


VII. 

THE  MORNING  STAR  AND  THE  CHRONOLOGY 
OF  THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST. 

The  connection  between  the  two  parts  of  the  above  title  is 
not  obvious  at  first  sight.  It  is  the  merit  of  Colonel  Mac- 
kinlay,  in  the  book  which  we  propose  to  review,  on  The 
Magi :  How  they  Recognised  Christ's  Star^  to  have  shown 
that  there  is  a  very  real  connection.  His  title  is,  perhaps, 
not  very  well  chosen,  for  it  does  not  allude  to  any  of  the 
parts  and  topics  which  seem  to  me  to  be  the  most  important 
and  interesting  in  his  work,  while  it  emphasises  what  is 
most  speculative  and  least  convincing.  Although  the  present 
writer  has  written  a  brief  preface  to  the  book,  it  seems  not 
out  of  place  for  him  to  review  it ;  indeed  it  appears  justifiable, 
and  almost  obligatory,  to  state  more  fully  than  was  possible 
in  the  few  paragraphs  of  his  preface  the  reasons  which  make 
him  consider  that  the  book  deserves  careful  reading. 

That  men,  when  conversing  familiarly  with  one  another, 
usually  draw  any  figures  of  speech  or  any  symbolic  expres- 
sions which  they  may  chance  to  employ  from  the  range  of 
their  own  interests  and  knowledge,  is  a  principle  that  cannot 
be  denied,  and  will  be  freely  admitted  by  every  one.  The 
lawyer  uses  legal  metaphors,  the  stockbroker  the  slang  of  the 
exchange,  in  explaining  his  meaning.  The  contrast  in  this 
respect  between  St.  Paul's  language  and  that  of  most  of  the 
writers  in   the  Bible   is   well  known,  and  has  often   been 

'  Hodder  &  Stoughton,  1907. 
(219) 


2  20  VII.    The  Mommg  Star 

pointed  out.  He  rarely  goes  to  nature,  but  uses  the 
language  of  city  life  and  of  education,  and,  to  some  ex- 
tent, of  business  and  trade.  On  the  contrary,  the  Bible 
generally  contains  a  far  larger  proportion  of  metaphors  and 
imagery  drawn  from  the  phenomena  of  nature,  the  wind,  the 
rain,  the  storm,  the  heavens,  sun  and  stars,  the  growing  and 
dying  or  harvested  vegetation  of  the  earth,  etc. ;  except 
Paul  the  writers  whose  works  are  contained  in  the  Bible  were 
men  of  the  country,  not  men  ot  the  city. 

In  regard  to  the  imagery  of  this  latter  class  a  second 
principle  may  be  observed.  Those  who  live  and  talk  in  the 
open  air  tend  to  draw  their  illustrations  from  what  is  present 
and  visible  to,  or  in  the  mind  of,  their  hearers  and  themselves 
at  the  time.  Probably  every  expositor  and  preacher  has 
occasionally  drawn  his  inspiration  more  or  less  unconsciously 
from  this  principle,  and  every  careful  reader  has  sometimes 
observed  particular  instances  of  its  application.  But  the 
formal  commentators  do  not  make  sufficient  use  of  it.  It  is 
not  obvious  to  the  secluded  scholar  in  his  study  amid  the 
atmosphere  of  books.  You  feel  it  most  strongly  in  the 
world  of  life.  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  however,  though  he  was 
(so  far  as  I  know)  unused  to  life  in  the  open  air  as  well  as 
unfamiliar  with  the  Mediterranean  lands,  perceived  this 
principle,  and  stated  it  in  a  very  interesting  passage  which 
is  quoted  by  Colonel  Mackinlay.  It  is  not  one  of  the  least 
of  the  merits  of  his  book  that  it  gives  prominence  to  this 
excellent  observation  of  a  great  man ;  if  I  may  suppose  that 
the  passage  is  as  unfamiliar  to  the  world  of  scholars  as  it  was 
to  me.  "  I  observe  that  Christ  and  His  forerunner  John  in 
their  parabolic  discourses  were  wont  to  allude  to  things 
present.  The  old  prophets,  when  they  would  describe  things 
emphatically,  did  not  only  draw  parables  from  things  which 


Chronology  of  the  Life  of  Christ  221 

offered  themselves,  as  from  the  rent  of  a  garment  (i  Sam. 
XV.  27,  28)  .  .  .  from  the  vessels  of  a  potter  (Jer.  xviii.  3- 
6)  .  .  .  but  also,  when  such  fit  objects  were  wanting,  they 
supplied  them  by  their  own  actions,  as  by  rending  a  garment 
(i  Kings  xi.  30,  31);  by  shooting  (2  Kings  xiii.  17-19),  etc. 
By  such  types  the  prophets  loved  to  speak.  And  Christ, 
being  endued  with  a  nobler  prophet  spirit  than  the  rest, 
excelled  also  in  this  kind  of  speaking,  yet  so  as  not  to  speak 
by  His  own  actions — that  were  less  grave  and  decent — but 
to  turn  into  parables  such  things  as  offered  themselves.  On 
occasion  of  the  harvest  approaching  He  admonishes  His 
disciples  once  and  again  of  the  spiritual  harvest  (John  iv.  35  ; 
Matt.  ix.  37).  Seeing  the  lilies  of  the  field,  He  admonishes 
His  disciples  about  gay  clothing  (Matt.  vi.  28).  In  allusion 
to  the  present  season  of  fruits,  He  admonishes  His  disciples 
about  knowing  men  by  their  fruits.  In  the  time  of  the 
Passover,  when  trees  put  forth  their  leaves.  He  bids  His 
disciples  '  learn  a  parable  from  the  fig-tree  ;  when  his  branch 
is  yet  tender  and  putteth  forth  leaves,  ye  know  that  the 
summer  is  nigh'."  This  admirable  passage  is  quoted  from 
Newton's  Commentary  on  Daniel^  a  work  which  is  proverbial 
in  modern  times  for  fanciful  and  strained  interpretations,  and 
which  I  confess  that  I  have  never  even  seen ;  but  if  there  is 
much  more  in  it  like  this  paragraph,  it  must  be  better  worth 
reading  than  some  modern  commentaries,  for  this  is  original 
and  true. 

The  author  mentions  several  other  examples  in  corro- 
boration of  Newton's  principle.  One  pair  of  examples  is 
peculiarly  interesting.  In  Matthew  xx.  1-16  occurs  the 
parable  of  the  householder,  who  went  out  early  in  the 
morning  to  hire  labourers  into  his  vineyard.  Every  one 
who   studies   ancient   literature   or   life    knows   the   strong 


2  22  VII.    The  Morning  Star 

prejudice  that  was  entertained  against  hired  labourers  alike 
in  Palestine  and  in  Italy  in  ancient  times.  The  "hireling" 
was  despised  as  untrustworthy  and  idle,  an  unwilling  labourer 
who  worked  for  money  and  not  for  love  of  the  work  or  of 
the  master  whom  he  served.  He  was  always  looking  for 
the  reward  and  the  pay  for  his  labour,  not  aiming  at  doing 
it  well  for  its  own  sake  (Job  vii.  2).  John  x.  12  f  contrasts 
the  cowardly  hireling  with  the  true  shepherd  ;  the  former 
neglects  the  sheep,  and  flees  when  the  wolf  approaches, 
but  the  true  shepherd  defends  them  to  the  death.  So  in 
Italy  mercennarii ox  free  hired  labourers  were  always  disliked, 
and  contempt  is  often  expressed  for  them.  A  man  who 
wanted  important  or  delicate  work  well  done  employed  the 
members  of  his  own  family,  especially  his  household  slaves.^ 
Every  person  who  attempts  to  explain  to  pupils  the  spirit 
of  ancient  Roman  life  has  constant  occasion  to  insist  on 
this ;  and  it  applies  also  to  Greek  life,  though  it  is  not  there 
so  strongly  forced  on  one's  attention. 

Why  is  it  that  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  the  prophets  and 
the  servants  of  God,  are  compared  by  Matthew  in  this  pass- 
age to  hirelings,  who  all  receive  the  same  pay  at  the  end 
of  the  day,  whether  they  have  worked  in  the  vineyard  one 
hour  or  a  whole  day  ?  In  Matthew  xxi.  28  it  is  the  owner's 
son  who  works  in  the  vineyard  ;  in  John  xv,  2  the  owner 
himself  is  the  workman.  What  is  the  reason  for  this  differ- 
ence? In  the  first  passage  there  is  no  stress  laid  on  the 
trustworthiness  or  untrustworthiness  of  the  hired  labourers. 
The  only  point  of  comparison  lies  in  the  reward  that  is 
given   to   all   alike :  so   much   is   true,  but   this   does   not 

1  That  household  slaves  were  a  part  of  the  family,  and  regarded  as  specially 
trustworthy  servants,  is  a  fact  of  immense  importance  in  the  study  of  ancient 
society. 


Chronology  of  the  Life  of  Christ  223 

quite  satisfactorily  and  fully  explain  the  choice  of  this 
parable. 

The  Author  points  out  that  the  passage  in  Matthew  xx. 
I -1 6  relates  a  conversation  held  about  midwinter  or  Janu- 
ary, whereas  Matthew  xxi.  28  and  John  xv.  2  were  spoken 
in  the  middle  of  March.  Wherein,  then,  lies  the  difference  ? 
He  very  aptly  quotes  Mr.  W.  Carruthers,  F.R.S.,  who 
writes,  "  For  tilling  the  ground  and  keeping  it  free  from 
weeds  in  winter,  hired  labour  would  be  sufficient ;  but  for 
cutting  off  the  rapidly  growing  shoots  in  March  or  later, 
so  as  to  prevent  the  energy  of  the  plant  from  being  directed 
to  mere  vegetative  development,  an  intelligent  workman 
would  be  needed".  The  delicate  labour  of  pruning  must  be 
intrusted  to  one  who  has  both  skill  and  interest  in  the 
result ;  but  unskilled  labour  was  sufficient  to  turn  over  the 
soil  and  to  destroy  the  weeds.  Moreover,  there  is  a  great 
deal  more  of  tedious  labour  involved  in  the  latter ;  and  it 
must  often  have  been  necessary  to  get  in  more  hands  to  do 
the  winter  work  in  the  vineyard. 

In  both  cases  the  illustration  was  drawn  from  what  was 
actually  being  done  at  the  moment.  Speaker  and  hearers 
saw  the  suggestion  of  the  parable  taking  place  before  their 
eyes,  as  the  words  were  spoken.  Similarly  I  have  elsewhere 
tried  to  point  out^  how  inevitable  it  is  that,  when  Christ 
said  to  Nicodemus  "  the  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and 
thou  hearest  the  voice  thereof,  but  knowest  not  whence  it 
Cometh  and  whither  it  goeth,"  the  two  were  not  in  some 
cellar  in  Jerusalem,  but  out  on  the  side  of  the  Mount  of  Olives, 
with  the  wind  of  spring  moving  gently  around  them.  The 
character  which  is  impressed  on  speech  and  thought  by  life 
in  the  open  air,  is  apt  to  escape  the  reader  who  is  used  to  live 

^  Th«  Education  of  Christ,  p.  74. 


2  24  VII.    Tlu  Morning  Star 

and  think  and  study  and  address  audiences  in  a  room  ;  for 
he  often  assumes  unconsciously  that  scenes  must  have  oc- 
curred in  closed  spaces,  though  something  of  the  vitality  is 
lost  on  this  assumption.  Part  of  what  is  called  the  Oriental 
character  of  the  Bible  should  more  correctly  be  called  the 
open-air  character. 

These  cases  may  be  generalised  as  a  principle.  Those 
who  live  in  the  open  air  and  draw  their  imagery  from  the 
visible  phenomena  of  nature  must  be  to  a  large  extent 
guided  in  their  choice  by  the  present  circumstances.  A 
man  who  converses  while  sitting  or  walking  in  the  open  air 
is  not  likely  to  talk  about  the  beautiful  bloom  of  the  fruit- 
trees,  if  the  trees  in  an  orchard  close  by  are  bare  in  the  winter 
season  or  loaded  with  fruit.  If  he  talked  of  the  beautiful 
flowers  that  clothe  the  trees,  you  know  that  the  conversation 
occurred  in  the  spring-time.  The  careful  reader  can  tell  in 
many  cases  the  time  of  the  year  when  such  illustrations  were 
spoken,  and  thus  a  system  of  annual  chronology  can  be 
established.  Every  reader  of  literature  can  illustrate  this 
from  his  own  experience  or  study.  There  are  few  com- 
mentators on  any  ancient  author  who  have  not  sometimes 
employed  reasoning  of  this  class.  Colonel  Mackinlay's  merit 
lies  in  employing  it  more  systematically  and  thoroughly,  and 
with  greater  attention  to  the  facts  and  habits  of  ancient 
Palestinian  life  and  surroundings,  than  any  other  person  (so 
far  as  the  present  reviewer's  knowledge  extends),  and  in 
establishing  on  this  basis,  which  is  theoretically  a  perfectly 
sound  one,  a  complete  chronology  of  the  life  of  Christ.  In 
doing  so  he  rests  his  reasoning  on  many  acute  and  subtle 
observations,  which  are  well  worth  careful  reading. 

This  method  of  reasoning  has,  of  course,  its  dangers  and 
its  defects.     It  is  almost  inevitable  that  the  reasoner  should 


Chronology  of  the  Life  of  Christ  225 

press  some  of  his  observations  too  far,  and  should  be  too 
subtle  and  too  ready  to  take  more  from  a  passage  than  others 
(and  especially  the  hasty  reader)  think  it  can  stand.  But 
there  is  always  that  danger  in  the  cumulative  method  of 
reasoning  :  one  brings  in  everything,  large  or  small,  that  can 
add  to  the  pile.  I  would  illustrate  this,  and  explain  its  limits, 
by  quoting  a  parallel  case. 

Mr.  Hobart  has  been  blamed  in  the  same  way  for  bringing 
into  his  proof  that  the  writer  of  the  Acts  and  the  Third 
Gospel  was  a  physician  many  details  which  add  little  or 
nothing  to  the  strength  of  his  demonstration.  This  is  quite 
true,  and  Mr.  Hobart  was  as  fully  aware  of  it  as  any  of  his 
critics.  But  when  his  critics  go  on  to  maintain  that  this 
detracts  from  the  strength  of  his  reasoning,  they  are  alto- 
gether mistaking  the  character  of  cumulative  evidence. 
The  valuelessness  of  one  detail,  the  lightness  of  one  stone, 
does  not  take  away  from  the  strength  and  the  weight  of  the 
other  details,  though  it  may  annoy  and  mislead  the  hasty 
reader,  who  judges  by  a  sample  and,  by  chance  or  design, 
takes  the  poorest.  Moreover,  the  critic  who  is  accustomed 
to  the  more  fascinating  and  brilliant  method  of  deductive 
reasoning  (in  which,  however,  the  weakness  of  even  one  link 
in  the  chain  is  fatal  to  the  strength  of  the  whole)  is  apt  to 
forget  that  cumulative  reasoning  is  not  of  the  same  kind. 
Each  has  its  distinct  character,  its  own  peculiar  merits  and 
defects. 

Accordingly,  Colonel  Mackinlay  may  lose  in  the  reader's 
estimate  several  of  his  props,  and  yet  retain  enough  to  sup- 
port an  edifice  which  continues  to  stand  and  to  be  habit- 
able. The  chronology  of  the  life  of  Christ  is  difficult  and 
obscure;  and  every  attempt  to  reason  out  a  new  line  of 
proof  ought  to  be  heartily  welcomed.     The  reasoning   in 

IS 


2  26  VI  I.    The  Morning  Star 

this  case  proceeds  from  a  mind  which  assumes  at  starting 
the  complete  trustworthiness  and  perfect  accuracy  of  the 
Gospels.  This  will  at  once  discredit  the  book  with  many 
of  the  prejudiced  and  arbitrary  class  of  scholars,  whose  mind 
is  already  completely  made  up  and  closed  to  any  new  evi- 
dence ;  and  it  may  be  granted  that  the  prejudice  in  the 
Author's  mind  does  in  some  cases  produce  what  I  must 
call  a  certain  weakness  in  the  argument,  where  he  abandons 
the  cumulative  method  of  observing  details  and  facts,  and 
proceeds  to  reason  from  general  principles,  as  for  example 
about  the  character  and  conduct  and  past  life  of  the  Magi 
in  his  Chapter  VII.,  in  which  he  no  longer  stands  on  what 
can  be  considered  firm  or  safe  gi'ound. 

While  the  present  reviewer  is  personally  most  interested 
in  the  thorough-going  chronology  of  the  life  of  Christ 
month  by  month,  or  at  least  season  by  season  and  feast  by 
feast,  which  the  Author  works  out,  it  is  certain  that  many, 
probably  most,  readers  will  follow  with  more  lively  interest 
his  observations  on  the  meaning  of  particular  sayings  and 
their  relation  to  the  surroundings  of  time,  season,  atmo- 
spheric phenomena  and  the  position  of  the  familiar  stars. 
Although  in  regard  to  the  phenomena  of  the  heavens  al- 
most all  interest  in  and  knowledge  of  even  the  more  striking 
stars  has  been  lost  in  Western  society,  yet  the  true  scholar 
must  try  to  place  himself  in  the  mental  atmosphere  of 
ancient  Palestinian  life,  when  a  certain  familiarity  with 
some  of  the  stars  was  possessed  by  all  and  was  made  an 
essential  part  of  their  thought  and  expression  and  used  as 
a  guide  in  their  ways  and  times  of  life.  One  or  two  ex- 
amples may  therefore  be  given  of  the  class  of  observations 
on  which  the  Author's  system  is  founded. 

When  Christ  saw  Nathanael  under  the  fig-tree,  this  may 


Chronology  of  the  Life  of  Christ  227 

be  regarded  as  an  indication  of  summer  or  autumn.  In 
Matthew  xxiv.  32,  when  the  branch  of  the  fig-tree  "is  now 
become  tender  and  putteth  forth  its  leaves,  ye  know  that 
the  summer  is  nigh  ".  The  fading  of  the  leaf  of  the  fig-tree 
is  alluded  to  by  Isaiah  xxxiv.  4.  Between  those  limits 
lay  the  scene  when  Nathanael  retired  under  the  fig-tree. 
He  was  astonished  that  any  one  could  see  him,  and  there- 
fore he  must  have  been  hid  from  view  by  the  thick  foliage. 
Moreover,  the  Author  points  out  that  he  had  evidently  gone 
there  to  pray  in  quiet  and  secrecy,  as  "  an  Israelite  without 
guile  ".  This  was  about  the  beginning  of  the  Ministry  of 
Christ ;  the  Baptism  and  the  Temptation  had  already 
occurred ;  but  there  seems  to  have  been  no  great  interval 
between  them.  The  Temptation  apparently  followed  the 
Baptism  immediately,  and  lasted  forty  days.  The  Author 
places  these  events  in  August  and   September. 

Some  time  previously  occurred  the  first  appearance  of 
John  the  Baptist  as  a  teacher.  The  Author  points  out 
that  three  expressions  in  his  early  teaching  refer  to  the 
season:  (i)  "The  axe  is  laid  to  the  root  of  the  tree":  the 
decision  to  cut  down  a  useless  tree  would  be  taken  later  than 
the  pruning  season  in  March,  when  it  had  become  evident 
that  the  tree  was  no  longer  productive.  (2)  "  Every  tree 
that  bringeth  not  forth  good  fruit  is  cut  down."  This 
emphasises  the  same  allusion.  Both  point  to  April.  (3) 
"  Whose  fan  is  in  His  hand  and  He  will  thoroughly  cleanse 
His  threshing-floor  ;  and  He  will  gather  His  wheat  into  the 
garner."  The  season  is  harvest  and  the  locality  was  the 
deep  hot  valley  of  the  Jordan,  where  harvest  was  very  early. 
The  preaching  of  John,  therefore,  began  to  arrest  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Jews  in  April  and  the  time  immediately  following. 
The  imagery  quoted  from  him  belongs  to  the  months  April- 


2  28  VII.    The  Morning  Star 


June.  After  a  certain  interval,  a  few  weeks  or  months  prob- 
ably, Jesus  came  to  be  baptised.  As  John  passed  like  a 
meteor  across  the  sky  of  Palestine,  or  rather  like  the  Morn- 
ing Star  heralding  the  light  of  day,  there  is  no  reason  to 
place  the  Baptism  in  a  later  year  than  the  first  appearance 
of  John.  On  this  point  there  is  a  practically  universal 
agreement  of  opinion.  All  these  events  belong  to  the  spring 
and  summer  and  early  autumn  of  the  same  year.  Since  the 
Baptist  is  so  consistently  spoken  of  as  the  Morning  Star,  it 
must  have  been  shining  at  his  appearance  and  gladden- 
ing the  eyes  of  the  crowd  of  his  followers  every  morning. 
The  custom  of  so  designating  him  arose  among  those  who 
saw  the  Star^  marking  him  out  as  the  Herald.  The  cycle 
of  appearances  of  Venus  as  the  Morning  Star  prove  that 
this  year  was  A.D.  25. 

To  take  another  example  of  the  influence  which  the  seasons 
and  the  state  of  agriculture  exerted  on  the  customs  of  the 
people  among  whom  Christ  lived  and  taught,  we  take  one 
from  the  sphere  of  action  and  no  longer  from  that  of  mere 
language.  The  Author  points  out  on  p.  1 20  that  at  the  feed- 
ing of  the  five  thousand  Jesus  "  commanded  the  multitude  to 
sit  down  on  the  grass  "  (Matt.  xiv.  19).  To  us  who  live  in  the 
moist  northern  islands  this  conveys  no  intimation  of  the 
time  of  year,  but  in  the  dry  soil  and  under  the  hot  sun  of 
the  Levant  lands,  it  means  that  the  season  was  spring.  Only 
in  spring  is  there  grass,  which  withers  early  along  with  the 
flowers  under  the  summer  sun.  This  fact  plays  an  important 
part  in  the  economy  of  farm  life ;  and  the  traveller  is  often 
reminded  of  it,  when  he  seeks  to  hire  horses  at  that  season : 
they  are  all  out  at  grass.  A  free  life  on  the  grass  for  the 
short  time  during  which  this  food  can  be  got  is  regarded 
*This  is  emphasised  below,  p.  231. 


Chronology  of  the  Life  of  Christ  229 

as  necessary  to  their  health  and  vigour.  Their  keep  costs 
nothing  during  that  time,  but  they  cannot  do  hard  work  on 
grass.  Hence  the  traveller,  if  he  insists  on  getting  horses  in 
that  season,  must  tempt  the  owners  by  a  higher  price.  Such 
are  the  facts  in  Asia  Minor,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  they 
are  similar  in  Palestine. 

The  brief  phrase  which  Matthew  uses  may  seem  to  some 
— especially  to  those  who  have  not  had  the  opportunity 
of  familiarising  themselves  with  the  kind  of  thought  and 
expression  which  arises  from  the  rarity  and  value  of  grass 
in  such  countries — to  be  an  insufficient  basis  to  support 
the  Author's  inference  as  to  the  season.  But,  as  he  points 
out,  Mark  vi.  39  speaks  of  "the  green  grass,"  and  John 
vi.  10  says,  "there  was  much  grass  in  the  place ".  Moreover 
John  vi,  4  mentions  that  the  time  of  the  year  was  just  before 
Passover.i  The  inference  from  the  scanty  phrase  of  Matthew 
is  perfectly  confirmed. 

The  Author  points  out  well  that  this  is  the  season  of 
the  year  when  bread  is  scarce  and  dear  for  people  who  live 
on  the  fruits  of  their  own  soil  and  are  not  affected  by  im- 
ported grain.  The  produce  of  the  last  harvest  is  coming 
near  an  end,  and  is  often  exhausted  or  almost  exhausted 
by  this  season,  while  the  new  harvest  is  ripening,  but 
not  ready  to  eat.  People  have  often  to  go  hungry,  and 
prices  rise  high.  In  this  time  of  dearth  the  relief  which 
Christ  gave  was  really  needed,  for  the  villages  (none  of  which 
were  even  near)  would  be  also  on  the  verge  of  scarcity. 

^  The  inference  from  Mark  and  John  is,  of  course,  familiar  and  common, 
and  has  been  used  as  an  argument  against  Hort's  unfortunate  suggestion  that 
rb  naorxa  in  John  vi.  4  is  an  interpolation.  But  my  object  is  to  demonstrate 
that  the  brief  word  of  Matthew  would  alone  be  sufficient  evidence,  though  I 
suppose  that  some  European  scholars  would  have  scouted  such  an  assertion, 
if  it  were  not  supported  by  the  clearer  testimony  of  John  and  Mark. 


230  VII.    The  Morning  Star 

While  in  this  case  the  individual  character  of  the  scent 
and  the  suitability  of  the  surrounding  conditions  are  extremely 
well  marked,  one  must  observe  that  the  details  which  give 
life  to  the  incident  are  lacking  in  the  story  of  the  feeding  of 
four  thousand  (Matt.  xv.  32  ff, ;  Mark  viii.  i  ff.),  except  that 
there  the  people  sit  down  on  the  ground :  there  was  no 
longer  grass  to  sit  on  at  this  season.  But  that  is  the  general 
state  of  the  soil :  the  other  scene  gathers  individuality  and 
life  from  the  unusual  character  of  the  circumstances. 

When  the  Author  attempts  to  find  an  allusion  to  the  vary- 
ing seasons  in  Luke  x.  3,  "  Lambs  in  the  midst  of  wolves  " 
(dated  February  or  beginning  of  March),  as  compared  with 
Matthew  x.  16,  "sheep  in  the  midst  of  wolves"  (in  harvest- 
time,  about  May,  "the  young  sheep  by  this  time  would  no 
longer  be  considered  lambs"),  I  do  not  think  his  reasoning 
can  be  accepted.  In  my  experience  the  terra  "lamb"  is 
used  in  Asiatic  Turkey  for  a  young  sheep  at  any  season  of 
the  year,  and  any  flesh  of  sheep  that  is  sold  as  fit  to  eat  is 
"  lamb  ".  The  flesh  of  a  sheep  in  its  second  year  is  already 
coarse,  and  not  considered  eatable  except  by  poor  and  hardy 
peasants.!  Moreover,  the  Author  himself  dates  the  words  of 
John  the  Baptist, "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,"  in  the  autumn, 
whereas  his  principle  would  require  a  date  about  February  to 
April.  No  safe  inference,  therefore,  can  be  drawn  from  the 
use  of  the  terms  "lamb"  and  "sheep". 

The  main  feature  of  Colonel  Mackin lay's  book  is  its  insist- 
ence on  the  importance  of  the  Morning  Star  in  the  symbol- 
ism of  the  Gospels.  Some  of  the  references  to  this  Star  in 
the  Gospels  are  so  emphatic  and  distinct  that  they  cannot  be 
misunderstood.  This  species  of  symbolism  was  employed 
freely,  as  every  reader  knows,  in  the  Gospels.     The  Author, 

^  This  18  mentioned  and  illustrated  in  my  Impressions  of  Turkey,  p.  17. 


Chronology  of  the  Life  of  Christ  231 

however,  shows  that  it  was  carried  very  much  farther  than 
has  been  hitherto  observed ;  and  some  of  the  passages  in  which 
he  detects  the  use  of  this  symbolism  gain  much  effect  from  his 
interpretation.  John  the  Baptist  was  the  Forerunner,  the 
Morning  Star,  Christ  was  the  Sun,  the  Light  of  the  World. 
On  p.  16  the  Author  protests  against  the  mistaken  idea  in 
Holman  Hunt's  picture,  "  The  Light  of  the  World,"  where 
Christ  is  represented  as  illuminating  the  world  with  a  lantern. 
It  was  as  the  Sun  that  He  illumined  the  world;  and  He 
used  the  words  about  Himself  at  the  end  of  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles,  which  "  reminded  the  Jews  of  their  deliverance 
from  Egypt  and  of  the  Divine  leading  by  the  pillar  of  fire 
in  the  wilderness  (Neh.  ix.  i,  9,  12,  19)".  At  this  Feast 
large  lamps  were  "  lighted  in  the  Temple  court,  which  were 
reminders  of  the  ancient  guiding  pillar  of  fire  in  the  wilder- 
ness ;  He  said  in  effect,  I  am  like  the  sun  which  gives  light 
to  all  in  the  world, — a  greater  blessing  than  the  Hebrews 
had  of  old,  when  they  followed  the  pillar  of  fire". 

Similarly  in  John  ix.  5,  where  "the  Light  of  the  World  " 
is  Christ,  the  allusion  must  be  to  the  sun,  for  there  is  in 
the  context  a  contrast  between  day  and  night  The  Author 
also  compares  xi.  9;  xii.  35  f.,  46;  i.  9;  i  John  ii.  8;  Luke 
i.  78 ;  ii.  32 ;  Acts  xiii.  47,  in  all  of  which  Christ  is  the  Sun. 
The  usage  persisted  as  it  had  been  originated ;  just  as  John 
the  Baptist  was  always  the  Morning  Star  and  Forerunner  of 
the  Sun. 

In  the  first  chapter  the  Author  is  careful  to  show  how 
much  larger  a  part  the  Morning  Star  plays  in  the  life  and 
language  of  the  peoples  in  the  Levant  lands  than  it  does 
among  the  late-rising  nations  of  the  dark  North.  The 
Morning  Star  begins  the  day  for  the  nomads  and  the  agri- 
culturists of  those  southern  regions,  and  even  in  the  cities 


232  VII.    The  Morning  Star 

people  work  at  a  very  early  hour;  in  southern  countries 
generally  people  rise  very  much  earlier  than  they  do  in 
the  cold  northern  lands  ;  and,  virhere  artificial  light  is  scanty 
and  bad,  few  sit  up  long  after  dark,  and  there  is  less  dis- 
position to  lie  late  in  the  morning.  Moreover,  where  sun- 
light is  abundant,  one  seems  to  feel  much  less  need  for  long 
sleep  than  in  dark  countries.  The  Author  touches  on  the 
question  whether  the  ancients  knew  that  Venus,  the  Morning 
Star,  assumes  at  times  a  crescent  form  (which  they  probably 
did),  and  how  they  acquired  this  knowledge.  He  is  dis- 
posed to  think  that  they  sometimes  employed  artificial 
aids  to  vision,  as  a  lens  was  found  by  Layard  at  Nemrud ; 
and  that  the  naked  eye  could  not  discover  the  crescent  form 
though  people  who  know  what  to  expect  can  see  it  or  think 
they  see  it.  But  one  of  my  friends,  a  distinguished  Professor 
of  Mathematics,  tells  me  that  the  crescent  form  could  be 
detected  by  a  careful  watcher  of  the  skies,  if  he  saw  the  planet 
against  the  edge  of  a  sharp  upright  cliff.  At  any  rate  it  is 
certain  that  the  ancients  "observed  the  planet  with  the 
utmost  attention"  and  gave  it  a  prominent  place  in  their 
religion  under  the  names  Istar  and  Ashtaroth  and  Venus 
and  so  on. 

Now,  just  as  John  the  Baptist  about  May- June  A.D.  25 
drew  his  illustrations  from  the  harvest  and  the  threshing- 
floors,  which  were  busy  at  that  season,  and  just  as  about 
December  A.D.  27  the  sowing  which  was  busily  going  on 
all  around  suggested  the  parables  in  Matthew  xiii.  3-32 ; 
Mark  iv.  26-29,  so  the  Author  maintains  that,  when  John 
preached  "  He  that  cometh  after  me  is  mightier  than  I," 
drawing  his  idea  from  the  Morning  Star,  herald  of  the  Sun, 
that  Star  must  have  been  in  its  morning  phase  at  the  time, 
guiding  the  conduct   and    plain  to  the   eyes  and  touching 


Chronology  of  the  Life  of  Christ  233 

the  minds  of  all  his  audience  every  day  before  dawn,  when 
they  rose  at  its  summons.  So  with  several  other  expres- 
sions, as,  "  he  was  the  lamp  that  buraeth  and  shineth " 
(John  V.  35),  "  behold  I  send  My  messenger  before  thy 
face"  (quoted  in  Matt.  xi.  10,  as  people  applied  to  him  the 
prophecy  of  Malachi  iii.  i). 

Incidentally  we  must  notice  that  such  accounts  as  those 
mentioned  in  the  beginning  of  the  preceding  paragraph 
are  not  to  be  understood  as  reports  of  what  John  and 
Jesus  said  in  one  single  speech.  They  should  rather  be 
taken  as  expressing  the  gist  and  marrow  of  the  teaching 
at  a  certain  period,  as  the  general  purport  crystallised  in 
the  memory  of  certain  auditors. 

In  the  Apocalypse  xxii.  16  Christ  is  called  the  Morning 
Star,  but  in  the  Gospels  He  is  the  Sun,  while  the  Baptist  is 
His  Herald,  an  image  taken  from  Malachi  iii.  i  ;  iv.  2,  as  seen 
in  Luke  L  76, 78 ;  Mark  i.  2 ;  Luke  i.  17 ;  John  iii.  28 ;  Matthew 
xi.  10 ;  Luke  vii.  27 ;  Paul  in  Acts  xiii.  24 ;  John  i.  7,  8,  etc 
The  comparison  in  the  Apocalypse  belongs  to  a  different 
period  and  another  circle  of  thought.  Its  meaning  may  be 
illustrated  by  the  expression  in  the  letter  to  the  Church  at 
Thyatira,  "  he  that  overcometh  ...  I  will  give  him  the 
Morning  Star"  (Rev.  ii.  28).  In  this  phrase  there  lies 
probably  more  than  is  allowed  for  in  the  Letters  to  the  Seven 
Churches  of  Asia,  p.  334.  We  must  understand  that  the 
Star  is  the  dawn  of  a  brighter  day  and  a  new  career.  To 
the  victor  there  shall  be  given  the  brightness  and  splendour 
and  power  that  outshine  the  great  Empire,  and  the  promise 
of  and  entrance  upon  a  higher  life.  It  is  the  same  thought 
as  afterwards  suggested  the  term  dies  natalis  for  the  day 
on  which  a  martyr  died :  this  day  was  his  birthday,  on 
which  he  entered  into  a  nobler  life.     After  the  same  fashion 


234  VII.   The  Morning  Star 

Christ  calls  Himself  in  Revelation  xxii.  i6the  Morning  Star, 
as  the  herald  and  introducer  of  a  new  era.  In  the  Gospels 
the  point  of  view  is  so  different  as  to  show  that  they  belong 
to  an  earlier  age  and  another  style  of  thought,  not  con- 
tradictory, but  the  result  of  different  surroundings  and 
conditions. 

In  Chapter  VI.  the  Author  discusses  the  length  of  Christ's 
Ministry,  and  concludes  that  it  was  three  and  a  half  years. 
It  has  long  seemed  to  me  that  this  was  the  true  length ; 
and  the  shorter  periods  assigned  by  many  scholars  appeared 
to  be  based  on  misconceptions.  The  estimate  of  one  year 
(or,  more  strictly,  one  year  and  some  months)  is  due  to 
misinterpretation  of  Luke  iv.  19,  where  "the  acceptable 
year  of  the  Lord  "  is  taken  as  the  period  of  Christ's  Ministry. 
This  is  an  almost  inexcusable  error,  for  it  supposes  that  the 
period  of  one  year  and  several  months  could  be  called  one 
year  by  the  ancients.  This  period  would  have  been  called 
two  years,  according  to  the  universal  rule.^  Some  of  the 
early  Fathers,  who  were  uninterested  in  and  careless  of 
chronological  exactness,  are  responsible  for  this  misinter- 
pretation,^ which  ought  not  to  survive  when  it  is  recognised 
that  the  Ministry  must  have  lasted  over  at  least  two  Pass- 
overs, together  with  some  months  before  the  first. 

The  Author  passes  over  this  estimate  as  requiring  no 
notice,  and  inquires  only  into  the  possibility  of  the  middle 
estimate  that  the  Ministry  lasted  two  years  and  a  half. 
Besides  the  much  debated  question  of  the  number  of  Pass- 
overs that  occurred  during  the  Ministry,  he  also  discusses 
the   number  of  Feasts  of  Tabernacles.     In  regard   to   the 

1  See  the  article  on  "  Days,  Months,  Hours  "  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the 
Bible,  vol.  v. 

'^  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  Origen  both  said  so. 


Chronology  of  the  Life  of  Christ  235 

former  question  there  is,  of  course,  nothing  new  to  be  said. 
The  arguments  have  all  been  already  drawn  out  to  endless 
length ;  and  the  Author  passes  over  them  in  a  brief  paragraph 
of  seven  lines.  The  latter  question  opens  up  a  topic  of 
considerable  extent,  on  which  the  Author  has  much  that  is 
quite  novel  to  say,  and  which  he  insists  upon  a  great  deal 
in  other  chapters  also.  He  points  out  that  the  reading 
of  Isaiah  Ixi.  by  Jesus  in  the  synagogue  at  Nazareth  must 
have  taken  place  at  the  beginning  of  a  year,  at  the  beginning 
of  a  Sabbatic  year,  and  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles.  His 
reasoning  on  this  subject  is  extremely  ingenious  and  inter- 
esting, and  merits  the  most  serious  consideration.  Chrono- 
logically, this  would  settle  the  question,  if  it  should  finally 
stand  scrutiny.  My  own  impression  is  that  it  will  establish 
itself;  but  I  may  be  prejudiced,  as  it  confirms  my  own 
chronological  views  in  all  except  one  point,  which  is  of 
merely  speculative  interest,  viz.,  the  year  of  Christ's  birth. 
The  length  of  Chrisf  s  Ministry  and  the  year  of  His  death 
are  matters  of  the  utmost  importance  for  the  right  under- 
standing and  for  the  historical  value  of  the  Gospels ;  but  it 
makes  little  difference  in  those  respects  whether  He  was 
bom  in  any  year  between  B.C.  8  and  5.  Colonel  Mackinlay 
has  maintained  that  the  Birth  was  in  B.C.  8  at  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles ;  and  he  has  advanced  distinctly  stronger  argu- 
ments for  this  view  than  can  be  brought  forward  in  favour 
of  any  other  year.  A  year  later  than  5  or  earlier  than  8 
would  be  fatal  to  the  historicity  of  Matthew  and  Luke ;  ^ 
beyond  that  the  date  is  a  matter  only  of  chronological  im- 
portance. Incidentally  we  must  here  observe,  as  a  conse- 
quence of  the  very  early  date,  that  the  residence  of  the 

1 A  date  later  than  B.C.  5  would  place  the  Birth  after  Herod's  death ;  a  date 
earlier  than  B.C.  8  would  put  the  Ministry  too  early. 


2^6  VII.    T^e  Morning  Star 


Holy  Family  in  Egypt  would  have  to  be  longer  than  is 
usually  supposed  ;  but  there  is  absolutely  no  ground  in  the 
words  of  Matthew  to  support  an  argument  that  the  resi- 
dence in  Egypt  could  not  have  lasted  so  long  as  jfive  years 
and  a  third,  which  is  the  period  assigned  by  the  Author. 

The  Sabbatical  year  necessarily  began  in  the  autumn. 
If  it  had  commenced  in  spring,  the  beginning  would  have 
occurred  after  corn  had  been  sowed,  and  the  land  could  not 
have  lain  fallow  for  the  year.  It  was  inevitably  implied  in 
the  idea  of  a  Sabbatical  year  that  it  should  begin  at  the 
end  of  the  annual  cycle  of  agriculture  and  before  the  next 
annual  cycle  opened;  i.e.,  it  must  begin  near  the  autumn 
equinox  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles.  This  was  fixed  by 
the  Law  of  Moses,  whereas  the  ordinary  arrangement  ot 
the  Calendar  in  the  South-Syrian  lands  made  the  year  begin 
in  spring. 

The  Author  maintains  that  the  Sabbatical  year  began  at 
the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  in  the  autumn  of  a.d.  26.^  This 
then  was  the  time  when  the  scene  in  the  Synagogue  at 
Nazareth  occurred ;  and  Christ  had  been  speaking  in  public 
previously  for  some  time.  The  conclusion  which  I  have 
reached  as  to  the  beginning  of  the  Ministry  {Christ  Born  at 
Bethlehem,  p.  201)  is  that  "in  the  later  months  of  that  year 
A.D.  25,  John  appeared  announcing  the  coming  of  Christ, 
and  very  shortly  thereafter  Jesus  came  and  was  baptised  by 
John  in  the  river  Jordan.  Some  months  ^  thereafter  occurred 
the  Passover  on  21st  March,  A.D.  26."  Colonel  Mackinlay 
would  place  these  events  earlier  by  a  few  months.  He  leaves 
a  longer  interval  between  the  appearance  of  John  and  of 

'  There  is  some  controversy  as  to  the  incidence  of  Sabbatical  years ;  but 
the  view  which  Colonel  Mackinlay  takes  seems  to  be  the  right  one. 

''In  the  original  text  I  printed  "one  or  two  months  thereafter,"  but  this 
was  too  precise,  and  I  would  substitute  the  vaguer  expression. 


Chronology  of  the  Life  of  Christ  237 

Jesus,  viz.^  about  four  to  five  months ;  and  places  the  Baptism 
about  forty-five  days  before  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  a.d.  25. 
The  preaching  of  Jesus  would  then  begin  about  that  Feast. 
I  see  no  objection  to  this,  though  the  evidence  is  too  slender 
to  demonstrate  it.  Thus  he  finds  the  first  two  occurrences 
of  this  Feast  within  the  Ministry  A.D.  25  and  26. 

The  third  Feast  he  places  at  the  time  of  Matthew  xii.  1 8- 
21  ;  the  Sabbatic  year  was  now  ended,  and  the  period  "of 
special  invitation  to  the  Jewish  nation "  was  past.  Now 
begins  a  new  period ;  and  in  the  words  quoted  from  Isaiah 
in  this  passage  of  Matthew  Christ  is  twice  described  as  the 
Saviour  of  the  Gentiles. 

The  fourth  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  in  the  Author's  scheme, 
synchronised  with  the  Transfiguration,  which  suggested  to 
Peter's  mind  the  idea  of  making  the  three  tabernacles.  The 
ordinary  view  seems  to  be  that  which  is  stated  by  Dr. 
Plummer  in  his  Commentary  on  Luke  ix.,  "if  they  were  to 
remain  there  they  must  have  shelter".  Why  superhuman 
personages  like  Moses  and  Elias  should  need  the  shelter 
of  booths  in  order  to  remain  on  a  mountain  does  not  appear 
very  clear.  But,  if  the  Jews  were  everywhere  making  booths 
at  that  very  moment  in  order  to  spend  in  them  the  sacred 
week,  it  seems  a  not  unnatural  suggestion  of  Peter's  to  con- 
struct three  booths  for  the  three  superhuman  personages  to 
keep  the  Jewish  feast :  "  one  for  Thee,  and  one  for  Moses 
and  one  for  Elias  ". 

The  Author's  suggestion  agrees  with  the  very  slight  in- 
dications that  can  be  gathered  from  the  context. 

The  Transfiguration  (Matt.  xvii.  i  ff. ;  Mark  ix.  2  ff. ;. 
Luke  ix.  28  ff )  occurred  later  than  the  Passover  of  A.D.  28 
(about  which  time,  as  we  have  just  seen,^  must  have  occurred 

*  See  above,  p.  228. 


^38  VII.    The  Morning  Star 

the  incident  mentioned  by  Matthew  xiv.  14  ff.,  and  John  vi. 
4  ff.) ;  but  the  visit  to  the  borders  of  Judaea  beyond  Jordan 
(Matt  xix.  I  ;  John  x.  40),  the  opening  of  the  final  period 
of  the  Saviour's  life,  about  the  end  of  28  and  the  beginning 
of  29,  had  not  yet  occurred.  This  approximate  date  for  the 
Transfiguration  is,  of  course,  evident  and  universally  accepted  ; 
but  its  connection  with  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  is  not  a 
matter  of  general  agreement. 

Now,  Jesus  spent  part  of  this  Feast  at  Jerusalem  (John  vii. 
14) ;  but  it  is  mentioned  that  He  would  not  go  up  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Feast,  but  remained  some  days  in  Galilee,  and 
appeared  in  Jerusalem,  "  when  it  was  now  the  middle  of  the 
Feast,"  the  third  to  the  fifth  day.  On  the  Author's  theory 
we  have  thus  a  quite  remarkable  chronological  agreement 
between  John  and  the  Synoptics ;  and  the  agreement  is  so 
•striking  that  it  could  hardly  be  purely  accidental.  On  that 
theory  the  Transfiguration  occurred  at  the  time  when  the 
Tabernacles  were  being  constructed,  i.e.^  either  on  the  day  at 
whose  sunset  the  Feast  began  or  on  the  first  day  of  the 
Feast.  In  that  event  Jesus  was  manifested  as  the  Son  of 
God,  not  publicly,  but  to  three  spectators,  on  a  solitary 
mountain-top ;  and  the  three  were  ordered  to  keep  the  event 
secret  until  after  the  Resurrection  (as  Mark  and  Matthew 
mention,  though  Luke  deliberately  omits  ^  this  sequel  to  the 
event).  John  vii.  4  mentions  that  when  this  "  Feast  of  Taber- 
nacles was  at  hand,"  the  brothers  of  Jesus  urged  Him  to  go 
up  to  Jerusalem,  to  abandon  His  privacy  and  secrecy,  and 
"manifest  Thyself  to  the  world".  Jesus  refused  to  go  up 
at  present,  on  the  ground  that  "  My  time  is  not  yet  come  ". 

'  This  remarkable  omission  of  part  of  his  chief  authority  must  make  the 
scholar  chary  of  allowing  any  weight  to  the  argument  that  Luke  knew  no- 
thing about  any  event  or  speech,  because  he  does  not  record  it. 


Chronology  of  the  Life  of  Christ  239 

When  the  rest  went  up  to  Jerusalem  to  the  Feast,  "  He  abode 
still  in  Galilee  ".  But  afterwards  He  went  up,  "  not  publicly, 
but  as  it  were  in  secret "  ;  and  suddenly,  "  in  the  midst  of 
the  Feast,"  He  appeared  in  the  Temple.  There  He  preached 
the  remarkable  discourse,  beginning,  "  I  am  the  light  of  the 
world  ". 

All  that  John  mentions  in  this  passage  fits  in  so  perfectly 
in  tone  and  in  chronology  with  the  Synoptic  record  as  to 
make  it  evident  to  any  one  possessed  of  the  literary  and  the 
historic  sense  that  the  two  narratives,  which  complete  one 
another  so  remarkably,  although  neither  of  them  mentions 
any  detail  or  any  saying  that  occurs  in  the  other,  must  be 
founded  on  personal  knowledge  or  first-hand  evidence  about 
actual  facts.  The  only  other  theory  that  would  account  for 
such  a  singular  coincidence  amid  difference  is  that  there  has 
been  deliberate  and  wonderfully  skilful  invention  of  a  series 
of  incidents,  and  partition  of  them  between  two  separate 
narratives  dovetailing  perfectly  into  one  another.  Such  a 
theory,  whether  in  the  form  that  the  two  narratives  were 
concocted  by  agreement  at  the  same  time,  or  that  one  was 
invented  subsequently  to  suit  the  other  which  was  already 
in  existence,  is  not  likely  to  be  advanced  at  the  present  day 
by  any  scholar,  for  there  are  too  many  obvious  difficulties 
(which  it  is  needless  to  state  here).  This  agreement  of  the 
two  authorities  ^  is  so  important  a  point  as  to  deserve  fuller 
notice. 

Take,  first  of  all,  the  sequence  of  events. 

I,  Jesus  went  forth  into  the  villages  of  Caesarea  Philippi. 
He  asked  His  disciples,  "Who  do  men  say  that  I  am?" 
They  answered  that  He  was  taken  by  some  for  John  the 
Baptist,  by  others  for  Elias  or  one  of  the  prophets.     He  then 

^  Mark  is  the  authority  on  whom  Luke  and  Matthew  both  rely. 


240  VII.    The  Morning  Star 

asked,  "  Who  say  ye  that  I  am  ? "  Peter  answered,  "  Thou 
art  the  Christ ".  Thereupon  He  bade  them  tell  no  man  of 
Him  (Mark  viii.  27-30). 

2.  Jesus  now  began  to  tell  them  of  His  approaching  suffer- 
ings and  death  and  resurrection.  This  He  stated  openly, 
Peter  rebuked  Him  for  speaking  thus,  and  was  sharply  re- 
primanded (Mark  viii.  31-ix.  i). 

3.  Now  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  was  at  hand.  His 
brothers  advised  Him  to  go  to  celebrate  it  in  Jerusalem,  and 
reveal  Himself  publicly  to  the  Jewish  world  for  what  He 
claimed  to  be  ;  but  He  refused,  because  His  time  was  not  yet 
fulfilled  ;  and  He  abode  in  Galilee  (John  vii.  1-9).  John's 
narrative  here  presumes  as  well  known  the  statements  made 
by  the  Synoptics  about  the  claims  now  being  advanced  both 
openly  and  in  private  to  His  disciples  (headings  i  and  2). 

4.  Six  days  later  He  took  Peter  and  James  and  John  into 
a  high  mountain  apart.  Here  occurred  the  Transfiguration  ; 
and  the  thought  of  the  Feast  suggested  to  Peter  that  the 
three  heavenly  ones  should  celebrate  the  Feast  of  Taber- 
nacles, and  the  three  earthly  ones  should  enjoy  the  spectacle. 
Afterwards,  as  they  descended  from  the  mountain,  Jesus 
again  charged  them  to  tell  no  man  until  the  Son  of  Man  be 
risen  from  the  dead.  They  questioned  one  another  what 
was  the  meaning  of  this  rising  from  the  dead.  And  Jesus 
explained  (Mark  ix,  2-13). 

5.  Jesus  then  went  up  secretly  to  Jerusalem  and  appeared 
in  the  Temple  on  the  third  or  fourth  day  of  the  Feast,  and 
taught,  so  that  the  people  wondered.  He  asked  why  they 
sought  to  kill  Him.  He  explained  that  He  would  be  with 
tbem  only  a  short  time,  and  would  then  go  "  unto  Him  that 
sent  Me ".  He  publicly  offered  instruction  to  all,  drink  to 
any  that  thirsted.     And  some  said  that  this  was  the  prophet, 


Chronology  of  the  Life  of  Christ  241 

others  the  Christ  But  the  conclusion  was  that,  since  He 
was  of  Galilee,  He  therefore  could  not  be  the  Christ  ;  ^  and 
no  man  laid  hands  on  Him.  He  declared  Himself  in  the 
Temple  to  be  the  light  of  the  world,  to  be  not  of  this  world, 
but  sent  by  His  Father.  And  He  went  out  of  the  Temple 
(John  vii.  lo-viii.  59).  Presumably,  John  at  least  accom- 
panied Him  to  Jerusalem  (probably  all  the  three  disciples), 
and  thus  knew  what  happened  there ;  but  no  other  person 
was  informed,  and  the  visit  was  little  talked  about  in  Galilee. 

6.  They  rejoined  the  disciples,^  and  He  travelled  in 
Galilee,  keeping  Himself  secret ;  and  He  taught  the  disciples 
about  the  resurrection  ;  but  they  understood  not  the  saying 
and  were  afraid  to  ask  Him  (Mark  ix.  14-32). 

Secondly,  it  is  plain  that  the  two  accounts  are  agreed  about 
the  importance  of  this  moment  in  autumn  A.D,  28.  Jesus 
was  now  beginning  to  make  His  fate  known ;  in  Galilee  He 
spoke  only  to  His  disciples  ^  about  the  coming  events  ;  but 
though  He  told  them  repeatedly,  they  failed  to  understand 
the  drift  of  His  words.  John  alone  adds  that  He  made  a 
secret  journey  to  Jerusalem  and  gave  similar  teaching  in  a 
guarded  symbolic  fashion  to  the  Jews  in  the  Temple.  Both 
accounts  agree  that  His  death  was  now  often  mentioned  by 
Him,  but  that  no  one  realised  what  He  meant. 

How  is  this  remarkable  agreement  as  to  time  and  subject 
to  be  explained  ?  I  cannot  see  any  opening  for  doubt  (i) 
that  it  arises  from  the  personal  knowledge  and  memory  of 

'  The  irony  of  this  conclusion  escapes  many  scholars.  Their  reasoning 
was  sound ;  and  their  conclusion  was  inevitable,  if  the  starting-point  was 
correct.  They  thought  it  was  correct ;  but  they  were  in  error.  Hence  their 
reasoning  was  really  a  witness  to  the  truth :  Christ  must  be  born  in  Bethlehem, 
and  Jesus  (unknown  to  them)  was  born  there.  Such  is  the  meaning  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel. 

-Luke  alone  says  "on  the  next  day  "  after  the  Transfiguration. 

'  Except  once  the  expression  "  openly  "  :  see  above,  heading  2. 

16 


242  VII.    The  Morning  Star 

John;  and  (2)  that  John  knew  the  Synoptic  narrative  (not 
necessarily  all  three  accounts,  of  course).  It  is  impossible 
that  John  should  so  exactly  fill  up  what  is  omitted  by  the 
Synoptists,  without  repeating  anything  that  they  tell,  unless 
he  was  deliberately  completing,  with  full  knowledge  of  the 
facts,  a  narrative  which  he  regarded  as  incomplete,  though 
true.  The  irony  of  John  (which  is  conspicuous  in  the  touch 
regarding  the  supposed  birth  of  Jesus  in  Galilee)  is  seen  to 
be  much  more  thoroughgoing  when  his  report  of  the  words 
in  the  Temple  is  taken  as  a  veiled  and  symbolic  statement 
to  the  multitude  of  the  teaching  which  was  given  in  Galilee 
to  the  disciples  alone  before  and  after  the  Transfiguration, 
and  which  was  as  little  understood  by  them  as  it  was  by  the 
multitude  in  the  Temple.  There  is  irony  in  this,  but  how 
much  greater  is  the  pathos  than  the  irony !  This  is  what 
the  disciples  afterwards  discussed  among  themselves  and 
mourned  and  marvelled  over,  in  the  days  that  followed  the 
Resurrection.^ 

An  agreement  of  this  kind  between  two  documents,  lying 
so  much  beneath  the  surface,  yet  so  complete,  would  in  the 
criticism  of  non-Christian  works  be  regarded  as  a  weighty 
proof  of  trustworthiness  and  authenticity,  unless  the  suppo- 
sition of  elaborately  concocted  fraud  was  established ;  but 
frauds  so  elaborate  and  skilful  are  unknown  in  ancient  litera- 
ture. 

In  favour  of  this  dating  Colonel  Mackinlay's  arguments, 
together  with  the  reasons  now  advanced,  seem  to  be  conclu- 
sive. From  it  follow  several  interesting  results,  which  he  has 
not  neglected  to  observe,  and  probably  many  more  which  fall 
outside  the  scope  of  his  book.  One  topographical  inference 
would  be  that  the  Mount  of  the  Transfiguration  could  not 

^  See  abGve,  p.  89  f. 


Chronology  of  the  Life  of  Christ  243 


be  Mount  Hermon  (which  ahvays  seemed  to  me  very  im- 
jDrobable  and  incongruous  with  ancient  habits  and  ideas),  but 
some  mountain  farther  south  and  nearer  Jerusalem.  It 
would  be  impossible  without  extraordinary  exertion  (possible 
for  a  trained  athlete,  but  not  for  ordinary  human  beings)  to 
be  on  the  top  of  Mount  Hermon  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Feast  and  in  Jerusalem  on  the  fourth  day  of  the  Feast.  If 
Tabor  or  some  other  peak  of  Galilee  were  the  scene,  the 
circumstances  are  quite  in  accordance  with  ordinary  life. 

The  Nativity  also  is  placed  by  the  Author  at  the  Feast 
of  Tabernacles.  This  seems  highly  probable,  and  may  even, 
I  think,  be  regarded  as  approximating  to  certainty.  It  has 
been  pointed  out  frequently  that  the  circumstances  of  the 
Birth  are  inconsistent  with  a  winter  date,  for  the  sheep  are 
folded  at  night  in  winter,  whereas  they  were  feeding  out  on 
the  upland  plains  near  Bethlehem  on  the  night  when  Christ 
was  born  :  that  is  the  custom  only  during  the  hot  season  of 
the  year.  Considerable  part  of  the  summer  is  required  for 
the  operations  of  harvest  and  thrashing  in  various  parts  of 
Palestine,  which  take  place  earlier  or  later  according  to  the 
elevation  above  the  sea  ;  and  it  would  have  been  impossible 
to  order  any  movement  of  the  people  until  those  operations 
were  fully  completed.  Accordingly  the  conclusion  has  been 
drawn,  "  we  may  say  with  considerable  confidence  that 
August  to  October  is  the  period  within  which  the  numbering 
would  be  fixed  "  {Christ  Born  at  Bethlehem^  p.  193).  Now, 
at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  there  was  always  a  considerable 
movement  of  the  Jews  from  the  northern  parts  towards 
Jerusalem  ;  and  it  was  natural  that  the  king  should  avoid 
the  disturbance  caused  by  two  movements  near  the  same 
time,  and  should  make  the  numbering  coincide  with  the 
Feast,  only  requiring  that  all  should  go  up  on  this  occasion 


244  VII.    The  Morning  Star 

to  the  town  of  Judaea,  which  was  their  original  home.  I  have 
pointed  out  how  necessary  it  was  that  the  prejudices  and 
customs  of  the  Jews  should  not  be  interfered  with;  an 
Oriental  despot  may  be  extremely  cruel  without  offending 
public  feeling,  and  indeed  may  be  all  the  more  successful  by 
virtue  of  his  cruelty ;  but  he  must  not  run  counter  to  the 
national  genius  and  habits,  and  this  Herod  seems  to  have 
carefully  refrained  from  doing.  The  journey  to  Jerusalem 
which  many  were  undertaking  at  the  autumn  Feast  could 
be  combined  with  the  enforced  repairing  of  each  to  his  own 
city,  for  it  must  be  remembered  that  these  northern  Jews  at 
this  period  were  of  the  two  tribes,  not  of  the  ten. 

An  interesting  discovery  has  been  made  in  Egypt  bearing 
on  this  point :  an  order  dated  A.D.  104  that  every  Egyptian 
must  repair  to  his  own  home  in  preparation  for  the  number- 
ing of  the  households.  Mr.  Kenyon  and  Mr.  Bell  append 
the  following  note  to  this  document :  "  It  is  a  rescript  from 
the  Prefect  requiring  all  persons  who  were  residing  out  of 
their  own  homes  to  return  to  their  homes  in  view  of  the 
approaching  census.  The  analogy  between  this  order  and 
Luke  ii.   1-3  is  obvious."^ 

This  may  be  taken  as  a  parallel  to  the  similar  order  at 
the  first  numbering  in  Palestine ;  and  it  tends  to  show  that 
when  Herod  issued  his  command,  he  was  acting  under  Roman 
orders,  and  had  no  choice  but  to  obey.  It  was  not  a  device 
which  he   had  chosen  himself  with  his  skill  in  kingcraft ; 

^  British  Museum  Papyri,  iii.,  p.  124.  I  am  indebted  to  Professor  J.  H. 
Moulton  for  directing  my  attention  to  this  important  document.  Previously 
I  had  been  inclined  to  think  that  the  method  of  carrying  out  the  enumeration 
on  the  principle  that  each  man  should  be  counted  in  his  own  city  might  have 
originated  from  Herod.  This  possibility  is  now  definitely  eliminated.  The 
method  was  Roman,  and  the  origin  may  therefore  be  assigned  with  perfect 
confidence,  as  Luke  assigns  it,  to  the  Emperor.  See  Moulton  in  the  Exposi- 
tory Times,  1907,  p.  41  (October). 


Chronology  of  the  Life  of  Christ  245 

it  was  one  that  was  forced  on  him,  and  which  he  had  to 
carry  into  effect. 

It  is  an  unfortunate  circumstance  for  the  convincingness 
of  the  Author's  argument  that  he  states  "  harmonies "  as 
if  they  were  arguments.  They  are  in  his  estimation  and 
from  his  point  of  view  arguments ;  but  in  the  modern  view 
they  have  no  value  as  proof  It  would  have  been  a  wiser 
plan  to  separate  the  "  harmonies  "  from  the  evidence.  The 
harmonies  are  in  some  cases  interesting,  but,  in  view  of  the 
feeling  in  the  Bible,  what  value  could  it  have  (even  if  proved) 
that  Christ  was  baptised  at  a  Full  Moon  ?  Such  "  harmonies  " 
are  valueless  coincidences. 

The  very  idea  of  "harmonies,"  as  Colonel  Mackinlay 
works  them  out,  will  be  found  repellent  by  many  minds. 
But  his  system  of  chronology  rests,  as  I  am  strongly  inclined 
to  think,  on  a  thoroughly  sound  basis  of  reasoning.  One 
cannot  yet  say  that  the  basis  is  certain.  The  subject  is 
still  too  obscure  and  the  evidence  too  scanty.  But,  in  the 
words  of  Professor  J.  H.  Moulton  (in  the  passage  just  quoted), 
"We  are  getting  on.  One  of  the  census  papers  of  the 
Nativity  year  will  turn  up  next."  When  the  chronology  is 
settled,  the  "  harmonies  "  come  in  as  very  noteworthy  coin- 
cidences,'in  which  there  maybe  more  than  can  as  yet  be 
comprehended :  the  whole  structure  may  be  compared  to 
that  of  the  great  Pyramid,  in  the  construction  of  which 
astronomical  facts  certainly  played  a  part,  though  it  is  not 
easy  to  determine  where  design  ends  and  coincidence 
begins. 

It  becomes  only  more  clear  to  the  reader  of  this  book 
that  the  Gospels  are  a  remarkable  structure,  resting  on 
fact  and  observation,  and  full  of  the  sort  of  detail  which 
can  originate  only  in  the  actual   life  of  a  real   personage. 


246  VII.    The  Morning  Star 

Note. — I  may  add  that  my  object  in  the  book,  Was  Christ 
Born  at  BetJilehem  ?  was  to  demonstrate  the  historical  possi- 
bility of  Luke's  narrative.  I  did  not  try  to  prove  that  Christ 
was  born  in  B.C.  6 ;  but  showed  that  this  date  offered  a  per- 
fectly reasonable  and  credible  historical  sequence  of  events 
in  perfect  harmony  with  all  other  evidence,  except  the  testi- 
mony of  TeituUian,  who  gave  the  date  B.C.  8.  The  proper 
year  for  the  Enrolment  was  the  one  mentioned  by  Tertul- 
lian;  but  I  showed  that  a  delay  of  two  years  was  not  incon- 
ceivable, and  in  a  subsequent  article  in  the  Expositor, 
November,  1901,  p.  321  fif.,  quoted  a  parallel  case  of  long 
delay.  But  the  testimony  of  Tertullian  is  now  confirmed 
by  Colonel  Mackinlay's  argument  that  the  Enrolment  took 
place  in  the  proper  year  B.C.  8  ;  and  this  date  may  now  be 
accepted  provisionally  as  the  only  one  which  has  all  the 
evidence  in  its  favour. 


VIII. 
A  CRITICISM  OF  RECENT   RESEARCH. 


VIII. 

A  CRITICISM  OF  RECENT  RESEARCH. 

A  GOOD  many  years  ago  I  expressed  (I  think  in  the  Ex- 
positor) the  opinion,  forced  on  one  who  lived  far  from 
Oxford,  that  Dr.  Sanday  was  to  some  degree  giving  up  to  a 
single  University  what  was  meant  for  mankind.  This  re- 
proach— if  that  can  be  called  reproach  which  was  merely 
the  recognition  of  a  zealous  and  strict  devotion  to  the  im- 
mediate duty — can  no  longer  be  uttered  in  view  of  the  books 
with  which  the  Lady  Margaret  Professor  of  Divinity  has 
enriched  us  in  recent  years.  One  perceives  that  these  are 
the  result  of  the  long  period  of  probation  and  preparation 
to  which  Dr.  Sanday's  work  has  been  submitted.  The 
marked  characteristic  of  his  writing  is  its  maturity  and 
fulness  of  thought  rather  than  its  ingenuity.  His  books 
derive  their  value,  not  from  bold  and  brilliant  views,  which 
seem  to  carry  both  the  writer  and  the  reader  away  with  them 
and  almost  to  overmaster  the  judgment,  but  from  the  im- 
pression they  convey  of  a  reserve  of  power  that  lies  still 
unused  behind  the  written  word,  of  a  methodical  toning 
down  of  expression  to  the  standard  that  is  inevitable  and 
convincing.  He  never  strikes  one  as  speaking  too  strongly, 
but  always  as  having  pondered  over  the  expression  of  each 
opinion  till  it  is  the  last  and  completest  word  that  has  to  be 
said  from  that  point  of  view.  There  is  no  modern  writer 
who  more  strongly  impresses  me  with  the  sense  of  the  moral 

(249) 


250  VIII.  y^  Criticism  of 

element  which  is  a  necessary  part  of  high  intellectual  power. 
It  is  a  truth  which  one  has  often  to  impress  on  students  at 
college,  that  mere  cleverness  is  a  poor  and  even  a  dangerous 
part  of  a  scholar's  equipment,  adequate  by  itself  only  for  the 
winning  of  entrance  scholarships  and  class  prizes,  but  having 
no  staying  power  in  the  race  of  life.  One  feels  in  Dr. 
Sanday's  work  that  it  is  founded  and  built  up  on  the  intense 
desire  to  reach  the  truth,  and  that  this  intense  desire  has 
directed  the  method,  and  concentrated  the  faculties  in  the 
path  of  knowledge. 

The  book  is  made  up  of  a  series  of  lectures  and  reviews 
which  have  no  connection  with  one  another  except  in  two 
very  important  respects,  they  all  belong  to  one  stage  and 
one  period  in  the  evolution  of  the  Author's  views,  and  they 
to  a  large  extent  spring  from  a  single  purpose,  viz.^  to  sum 
up  and  estimate  some  leading  tendencies  and  results  in  the 
present  stage  of  scholarship.  That  the  various  surveys  which 
are  taken  of  separate  parts  of  the  whole  field  were  worked 
up  to  suit  different  occasions  gives  an  appearance  of  dis- 
jointedness ;  but  the  appearance  is  really  only  superficial, 
and  might  by  slight  changes  have  been  in  great  measure 
eliminated,  if  there  were  anything  to  gain  by  eliminating  it. 

The  opening  chapter  on  the  Symbolism  of  the  Bible  is  a 
very  simple  expression  of  much  careful  thought :  many 
problems  have  been  pondered  over  for  a  long  time  before 
it  was  written,  yet  they  hardly  appear  above  the  calm  sur- 
face. On  p.  14,  as  we  see  gladly,  Dr.  Sanday  recognises 
that  "  from  the  very  first  sacrifice  was  expressive  of  ideas  ". 
The  use  of  the  plural  shows  that  he  would  not  admit  the 
explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  rite  of  sacrifice  from  a  single 
idea,  as  some  scholars  would  maintain.  Sacrifice  is  the 
expression  of  the  human  mind  in  its  relation  to  God,  and 


Recent  Research  251 


is  as  various  as  the  human  mind.  The  thought  of  primitive 
man  was  simple,  but  it  can  never  be  reduced  to  one  idea 
alone.  The  man  who  can  explain  the  origin  of  sacrifice 
from  one  idea  is  perilously  near  the  discovery  of  the  key  to 
all  mythology,  and  he  who  has  found  that  key  is  hopelessly 
lost.  You  can  with  sufficient  ingenuity  always  explain — 
verbally — anything  out  of  anything;  and  thus  you  can  draw 
out — on  paper — a  process  of  development  whereby  all 
mythology  and  all  sacrifice  evolve  themselves  from  a  single 
origin  ;  but  this  process  has  nothing  firmer  to  rest  upon  than 
the  paper  on  which  it  is  written.  Dr.  Sanday's  words  might 
easily  be  taken  as  indicating  the  view  that  there  are  only 
two  really  primitive  ideas  in  sacrifice,  the  gift  and  the  sacri- 
ficial communion ;  but  I  think  that  this  would  be  a  miscon- 
ception, and  that,  when  he  speaks  of  "  two  ideas  that  we  can 
trace  farthest,"  he  does  not  intend  to  restrict  the  number  to 
two,  but  merely  expresses  his  conviction  as  to  the  reality  and 
certainty  of  at  least  these  two. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  confess  that  I  cannot  entirely  sym- 
pathise with  the  point  of  view  expressed  in  the  paragraph  at 
the  foot  of  p.  9  :  "  We  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  in  the 
early  books  of  the  Bible,  where  dealings  take  place  between 
God  and  man,  the  Godhead  is  represented  under  human 
form.  Man  was  himself  the  noblest  being  with  which  he 
was  acquainted  ;  and  therefore,  in  conceiving  of  a  being  still 
nobler,  he  necessarily  started  from  his  own  self-conscious- 
ness ;  he  began  by  magnifying  his  own  qualities,  and  only 
by  degrees  did  he  learn,  not  only  to  magnify,  but  to  dis- 
criminate between  them." 

This  is,  in  a  way,  perfectly  proper  and  sensible.  It  is 
what  every  one  says — ^perhaps  what  every  one  must  say — 
and  yet  I  do  not  feel  that  it  is  vital  or  illuminative :  it  seems 


252  VIII.  ^   Criticism  of 

to  leave  out  the  true  principle.  I  should  not  venture  to 
attempt  to  define  the  true  principle:  the  task  is  above  my 
power.  But  I  cannot  recognise  it  in  this  statement,  which 
is  apt  to  suggest  that  the  conceptions  of  the  Divine  nature 
current  among  the  Hebrews  began  by  being  anthropomorphic. 
This  does  not  convince  me,  I  should  rather  approach  the 
problem  from  the  point  of  view  that  the  early  Hebrew  con- 
ceptions were  undeveloped,  vague,  and  capable  of  future 
growth  in  more  than  one  direction.  They  might  have  de- 
generated into  anthropomorphism,  as  the  Greek  conception 
did.  They  were  equally  capable  of  development  in  another 
direction ;  and  they  did  in  fact,  under  the  impulse  of  a  suc- 
cession of  prophets  and  thinkers,  develop  in  a  nobler  and 
truer  way.  But  how  to  describe  the  unformed  germ  of  early 
Hebrew  thought  I  know  not. 

Difficulties  of  various  kinds  impede  the  attempt  to  express 
oneself  clearly  on  this  subject.  You  cannot  speak  precisely 
about  what  is  essentially  vague.  It  is  difficult  to  project 
oneself  into  the  mind  of  primitive  man,  or  to  picture  to 
oneself  what  was  in  his  mind.  It  is  also  hard  for  us,  who 
are  accustomed  to  aim  at  clearness  and  precision  and  definite 
outlines,  to  sympathise  with  or  understand  the  Oriental  ex- 
pression which  rather  shrinks  from  these  qualities  and  prefers 
the  vague,  the  allusive  and  the  indirect.  The  difference 
between  the  European  and  the  Asiatic  mind  is,  to  a  large 
degree,  a  mere  matter  of  education  lasting  through  genera- 
tions and  centuries,  but  perhaps  it  is  to  a  certain  extent 
due  to  difference  of  nature  and  sympathy  and  endowment. 
Most  of  what  Dr.  Sanday  says  on  this  hard  subject  seems 
to  me  excellent,  illuminative  and  suggestive  ;  but  not 
all. 

I  much  prefer  his  other  term  "indirect  description"  to 


Recent  Research  253 


the  word  "  symbolism  "  by  which  he  more  frequently  desig- 
nates the  Hebrew  and  Oriental  style  of  expression. 

The  term  "  symbolism  "  which  Dr.  Sanday  prefers,  not  as 
perfect  but  as  the  least  objectionable,  is  open  to  the  objection 
that  the  person  who  speaks  symbolically  is  conscious  of  the 
difference  between  the  symbol  and  the  real  thing,  and  con- 
sciously employs  the  one  to  stand  in  place  of  the  other. 
That  is  the  case  with  the  symbolic  actions  of  the  prophets, 
described  in  the  first  section  of  this  opening  chapter  of  the 
book  which  we  are  reviewing,  as  when  Agabus  took  Paul's 
girdle  and  bound  himself  with  it  in  token  that  Paul  would 
be  bound  if  he  went  to  Jerusalem  :  the  symbolism  here  was 
conscious  and  intended,  and  Agabus  explained  its  meaning. 

But,  as  the  Author  himself  says  on  p.  11,  the  earlier 
Hebrews  often  did  not  regard  the  "symbol"  as  different 
from  the  thing  symbolised :  the  "  symbol "  was  the  thing 
symbolised.  How  are  we  to  understand  or  to  describe  a 
stage  of  thought  when  ideas  are  so  vague  and  so  unformed 
that  they  thus  pass  into  one  another  without  any  conscious- 
ness of  the  transition  ?  Take  the  genealogical  fiction,  which 
plays  so  important  a  part  in  the  early  history  of  many  peoples, 
not  merely  of  the  Jews.  It  was  not  a  fiction  in  primitive 
thought :  it  expressed  a  truth  in  the  simplest  and  most  direct 
manner  in  which  the  natural  mind  could  express  it,  though 
to  us  the  manner  seems  indirect.  The  Rev.  Dr.  White  of 
Marsovan  gives  an  admirable  example  that  came  within  his 
own  experience,  where  a  wandering  dervish  used  this  mode 
of  expression :  "  He  told  me  that  he  was  a  Shukhbazari ; 
and  then,  to  enlighten  my  ignorance,  explained  that  Arabs, 
Circassians  and  Shukhbazaris  are  own  brothers,  children  of 
one  father  and  one  mother.  He  used  a  Scripture  form  of 
expression  to  make  me  understand  that  the  three  peoples 


2  54  VllL  A   Criticisni  of 

possessed  the  same  traits  of  character."  The  dervish  was 
merel)  eager  to  emphasise  the  close  resemblance  in  character 
between  the  three  peoples.  He  could  think  and  speak  only 
in  concrete  terms:  he  could  not  generalise  or  deal  in  abstrac- 
tions. Yet  out  of  his  language,  in  the  process  and  hardening 
of  thought,  there  might  rise  naturally  and  easily  a  genea- 
logical fiction:  the  common  father  and  mother  acquire 
names,  and  the  three  peoples  become  three  sons. 

Nor  is  it  merely  real  similarity  of  character  that  may  give 
origin  to  this  genealogical  expression  of  history.  Geo- 
graphical contiguity  may  cause  it,  or  the  speaker  may  express 
by  it  little  more  than  a  common  diversity  from  himself.  He 
looks  out  over  the  world,  and  distinguishes  from  himself 
several  peoples  of  the  north-west  as  being  children  of  one 
father  different  from  his  father.  So  in  Genesis  x.  4  we  have 
^'the  sons  of  J  a  van :  Elishah,  and  Tarshish,  Kittim,  and 
Dodanim  ". 

The  "genealogical  fiction,"  then,  has  to  be  understood 
correctly,  and  it  becomes  valuable  history.  Only  the  un- 
sympathetic and  unintelligent  historical  criticism  of  forty  or 
fifty  years  ago,  the  period  of  Grote  and  Cornwall  Lewis  and 
the  Tubinger,  would  be  content  to  regard  it  simply  as  legend, 
and  leave  it  out  of  the  sphere  of  history.  But,  in  order  to 
understand  aright  any  genealogical  myth,  we  must  put  our- 
selves at  the  point  of  view  of  the  person  or  people  who  origin- 
ated that  particular  expression.  It  tells  us  something  about 
the  peoples  whom  it  correlates  to  one  another :  it  tells  us 
more  about  the  person  or  people  who  originated  it :  it  tells 
us  most  of  all  about  the  standard  and  range  of  knowledge, 
the  limits  of  geographical  outlook,  and  so  on,  in  the  period 
when  it  took  the  form  in  which  we  have  it. 

Again,  what  was  the  conception  in  the  mind  of  the  ancient 


Recent  Research  255 


Mebrevv,  when  he  spoke  of  the  messenger  (or  angel)  of  the 
Lord  who  conveyed  certain  knowledge  to  the  mind  of  a 
human  being  ?  Who  shall  define  this  conception,  or  express 
exactly  the  distinction  between  it  and  the  thought  in  the 
mind  of  another  Hebrew,  who  used  the  expression  that  the 
word  of  the  Lord  came  to  a  man  ?  These  two  phrases  belong 
to  two  different  stages  in  the  thought  of  men,  who  had  a 
simpler  and  less  clearly  defined  way  of  conceiving  and  ex- 
pressing their  relation  to  the  unseen  Divine  power  which 
surrounds  and  is  always  pressing  upon  man.  It  is  not 
mine  to  define  these  Hebrew  ideas.  I  do  not  understand 
them.  But  I  do  at  least  feel  that  they  are  radically  different 
from  the  anthropomorphic  conception  of  the  Hellenes.  .And 
I  feel  in  a  vague  way  that  Luke  the  Hellene  has  unconsciously 
and  unintentionally  transfused  a  Hebrew  view  into  a  Greek 
view,  when  he  described  the  angel  of  the  Annunciation. 
He  seems  to  have  thought  of  such  an  appearance  as  Iris 
makes  in  the  Iliad;  but  I  doubt  if  that  was  the  idea  in  the 
Hebrew  mind  of  her  from  whom  the  story  came.  It  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  Luke  added  or  invented  any  detail. 
The  name  Gabriel  beyond  all  question  comes  from  the 
Hebrew  authority  and  belongs  to  the  obscure  later  Hebrew 
development  of  the  angelic  idea,  when  the  power  of  God, 
conceived  as  acting  in  different  directions,  was  endowed 
with  various  names ;  and  in  this  stage  there  was  certainly  a 
certain  approach  to  anthropomorphism,  as  Hebrew  thought 
was  being  misdeveloped  and  clothed  with  defined  but  false 
form.  Luke,  however,  was  simply  translating  into  Greek  a 
Hebrew  narrative,  rethinking  it  and  then  expressing  it,  but 
in  rethinking  it  he  unavoidably  gave  it  a  more  Hellenic 
form. 

But  here  lies  the  problem  that  is  proposed  to  the  modern 


256  Mill.  A   Criticism  of 

student  of  ancient  history.  He  must  entirely  dissociate 
himself  from  the  accepted  method  of  investigating  the 
ancient  documents — what  is  called  the  "  critical "  method. 
He  must  forget  the  modern  dichotomy  of  the  world  into  the 
"educated"  and  the  "savage"  races.  He  must  separate 
the  primitive  man  alike  from  the  "educated"  and  the 
"  savages "  of  modem  time ;  for  men  in  the  early  stage 
were  neither  one  nor  the  other,  but  contained  the  possibility 
of  both. 

In  the  second  half  of  this  most  interesting  chapter,  Dr. 
Sanday  proceeds  to  apply  to  the  Gospels  the  inferences 
which  he  has  drawn  from  the  use  of  "  symbolism  "  in  the  Old 
Testament.  The  discussion  of  the  Temptation  of  Jesus 
occupies  the  largest  space  in  this  part,  and  is  of  peculiar 
interest  to  the  present  reviewer.  The  Temptation  is  in  Dr. 
Sanday's  view  entirely  a  parable  (if  I  am  not  v/holly  mis- 
understanding him).  His  idea  of  the  Temptation  is  expressed 
in  the  picture  by  W.  Dyce — "  a  monotonous  landscape  and 
a  Figure  seated  upon  a  stone,  with  the  hands  clasped,  and 
an  expression  of  intense  thought  on  the  beautiful  but  by  no 
means  effeminate  features  ",  Not  that  he  regards  this  as  the 
only  correct  representation  of  the  Temptation.  As  he  says, 
"  it  would  be  a  mistake  if  we  were  to  insist  too  much  upon 
this  contrast  \i.e.,  the  contrast  between  the  subjective 
modern  view,  and  that  of  Tissot  with  a  conventional  fiend, 
or  of  mediaeval  painters  with  every  detail  sharp  and  definite], 
as  though  the  modern  presentation  were  right  and  true, 
and  the  ancient  or  mediaeval  wrong  and  untrue.  Each  is 
really  right  in  its  place  :  they  mean  fundamentally  the  same 
thing,  and  it  is  only  the  symbolical  expression  that  is 
different" 

With  Dr.  Sanday's  view  I  find  myself  on  the  whole  in 


Recent  Research  257 


thorough  sympathy.  That  the  story  of  the  Temptation 
is  largely  of  the  nature  of  parable  seems  established  by  the 
Gospels  themselves.  I  venture,  as  being  the  briefest  way 
in  which  I  can  express  my  criticism  of  the  present  study, 
to  quote  part,  and  to  abbreviate  part,  of  what  I  once  wrote 
on  the  subject  {The  Education  of  Christ,  p.  31  f):  "The 
authority  obviously  is  the  account  given  by  Himself  to  His 
disciples ;  and  we  are  told  that  '  without  a  parable  spake  He 
not  to  them '.  How  far  the  details  partake  of  the  nature  of 
parable,  intended  to  make  transcendental  truth  intelligible 
to  the  simple  fishermen,  we  cannot  precisely  tell,  and  no  man 
ought  to  dogmatise.  But  no  one  can  doubt  as  to  the  essential 
truth  that  lies  under  the  narrative."  Jesus  counted  the 
cost  before  He  began  His  career :  He  thought  of  other 
possibilities,  brilliant  and  tempting ;  and  He  rejected  them 
as  temptations.  It  is  involved  in  the  Temptation,  when  He 
described  it  to  His  disciples,  that  He  was  already  con- 
scious of  the  superhuman  powers  and  opportunities  that 
were  His,  if  He  chose  to  use  them  for  personal  ends.  If" 
you  regard  the  story  as  anything  beyond  pure  fiction,  you 
must  accept  the  superhuman  consciousness  of  Him  who  was 
tempted  by  means  such  as  are  here  brought  to  bear  on  Jesus. 
As  a  whole  the  temptations  are  meaningless  and  absurd,  if 
applied  to  an  ordinary  man.  It  is  mere  trifling  or  sarcasm 
to  say  to  a  man  who  is  hungry,  "  command  that  these  stones 
become  loaves  ". 

If  Jesus  could  think  and  speak  of  this  as  a  temptation,  He 
must  have  been  conscious  of  His  own  superhuman  power ; 
and  at  the  time  when  He  related  the  incident  to  His  disciples, 
He  must  have  been  already  regarded  by  them  as  possessed 
of  such  power.  Even  the  idea  that  the  Temptation  was 
either  partly  parable,  or  entirely  and  purely  a  symbolic  way 

17 


258  VIII.  ^   Criticism  of 

of  explaining  a  thought  too  high  for  the  capacity  of  simple 
uneducated  fishermen  and  rustics  to  comprehend,  implies  in 
the  person  who  related  this  story  about  Himself  the  con- 
sciousness of  powers  and  opportunities  beyond  the  range  of 
mere  humanity  and  the  knowledge  that  His  hearers  had  some 
vague  sympathetic  conception  of  this  nature.  Accordingly, 
those  who  hold  and  carry  out  logically  the  theory  that  Jesus 
was  a  mere  human  being  and  that  He  was  during  His  life- 
time regarded  only  as  a  human  being  by  His  associates, 
must  necessarily  dismiss  the  story  of  the  Temptation  as  pure 
legend,  the  invention  of  a  later  age,  and  must  deny  to  it  the 
character  of  a  parable  spoken  by  Jesus. 

If  I  understand  Dr.  Sanday  rightly,  there  is  nothing  in 
this  statement  that  would  disagree  with  his  views.  The  only 
word  of  question  that  I  would  make  with  regard  to  his  ex- 
pression of  them,  is  whether  in  the  desire  to  give  clearness  to 
his  lecture  (such  was  the  original  form  of  the  first  chapter) 
he  has  not  made  it  in  some  parts  too  clear  and  sharp  and 
definite  in  outline,  too  strongly  modern  in  tone :  though 
the  quotation  which  I  have  extracted  from  his  book  attests 
his  recognition  of  the  fact  that  every  age  must  and  may 
look  at  the  Temptation  with  different  eyes,  and  all  perhaps 
equally  rightly. 

Some  may  probably  be  afraid  that  Dr.  Sanday's  use  of 
symbolism  may,  from  his  premises,  be  quite  logically  carried 
very  far,  much  farther  than  he  carries  it  or  they  would  like. 
But  in  an  admirable  concluding  page  he  sums  up  the  true 
attitude  of  mind  and  the  right  temper  in  which  historical 
study  ought  to  be  carried  on.  With  certain  obvious  modifi- 
cations, what  he  says  here  is  applicable  to  every  department 
of  ancient  history.  A  certain  sympathy  for  peoples  and 
times  and  ideas  remote  from  our  own,  an  intense  desire  to 


Recent  Research  259 


comprehend  them,  a  determined  effort  to  throw  off  the  fet- 
ters of  nineteenth  century  views  and  to  rise  to  a  freer  outlook, 
a  contempt  for  narrow  reasoning  and  hard  logicaHty  (which 
in  these  historical  problems  is  often  thoroughly  illogical  in 
the  higher  sense  of  the  term  logic),  all  these  are  needed  in  the 
reconstruction  of  ancient  history  and  the  interpretation  of 
ancient  literature.  But  hear  how  delicately  and  finely  Dr. 
Sanday  describes  this  attitude  of  mind  :  it  "consists  mainly 
in  three  things  : — 

"  I.  In  a  spirit  oi  reverence  for  old  ideas,  which  may  perhaps 
be  transcended,  but  which  discharged  a  very  important 
function  in  their  day ; 

"  2.  In  a  spirit  oi patience  which,  because  those  ideas  may 
be  transcended,  does  not  at  once  discard  and  renounce  them, 
but  seeks  to  extract  their  full  significance  ; 

"  3.  In  an  open  viindiox  the  real  extent  of  this  significance.^ 
We  have  our  treasure,  perhaps,  in  earthen  vessels,  but  the 
vessels  are  themselves  very  deserving  of  study.  I  would 
say  rather  that,  for  the  purpose  before  us,  we  should  not 
think  of  them  exactly  as  earthen,  but  as  made  of  some  finer 
and  more  transparent  material  which  permits  us  to  see  through 
to  the  light  within." 

A  survey  of  recent  research  would  be  an  impertinent  and 
valueless  production  if  it  were  simply  a  cataloguing  of  faults 
and  a  statement  of  dissent.  One  is  familiar  with  the  criticism 
written  by  the  able  young  graduate,  fresh  from  the  schools, 
whose  condescending  recognition  of  merit  is  as  rare  as  a  grain 
of  wheat  in  a  bushel  of  chaff,  whose  principal  aim  seems  to 
be  to  show  how  much  better  he  could  have  done  the  work, 

^The  mind  open  to  hear  evidence  is  what  we  all  desire,  but  none  of  us 
fully  possesses.  We  are  all  to  some  extent  prejudiced  by  training,  predilec- 
tion, etc.    The  truest  scholar  has  the  most  open  mind.     See  above,  p.  34  f. 


26o  VIII.  ^   Criticis77i  of 

if  he  had  cared  to  undertake  it,  than  the  author,  and  who  has 
evidently  never  made  any  serious  attempt  to  understand  the 
book  which  he  criticises,  but  merely  touched  it  on  the  out- 
side and  gone  off  at  a  tangent.  Criticism  of  this  kind  is 
unerquicklich  wie  der  Nebelwind. 

Totally  different  is  the  character  of  Dr.  Sanday's  work. 
He  appreciates  thoroughly  the  high  principle  that  it  is 
the  function  of  true  criticism  to  find  excellences,  not 
defects.  He  tells  us  what  he  finds  that  is  good  in  each  of 
the  authors  whom  he  criticises;  he  expresses  his  dissent 
only  where  necessary  to  bring  out  the  state  of  modern 
opinion ;  and  he  expresses  it  in  very  gentle  and  gracious 
terms.  The  sharpest  statement  of  disapproval  which  I 
observe  is  that  on  p.  171 ;  and  yet  how  much  it  is  qualified 
by  preceding  sentences  of  genuine  hearty  praise.  I  quote 
the  whole  passage :  "  I  have  a  sincere  respect,  and  even 
admiration,  for  perhaps  five-sixths  of  his  work,  including 
particularly — I  should  like  to  say  in  passing — his  reviews 
of  the  literature  of  Patristics,  in  which  he  has  been  at  once 
just  and  generous  to  some  of  my  friends  here  in  Oxford. 
I  repeat  that  the  pamphlet  from  which  I  started  is  not  only 
good  but  in  many  ways  very  good.  One  may  go  on  for 
wide  stretches  in  his  books  and  find  only  occasion  to  admire. 
And  yet  every  now  and  then  one  is  pulled  up  sharp  by 
passages  like  those  of  which  I  have  been  speaking,  which,  I 
confess,  move  me  to  indignation,  so  narrow  are  they,  and  so 
hard,  so  deficient  in  sympathy  and  in  intelligence  for  the 
difference  between  one  age  and  another." 

A  quality  in  Dr.  Sanday  which  strikes  me  as  peculiarly 
admirable  —  perhaps  because  I  lack  it  too  much  —  is  his 
power  of  learning  from  writers  who  are  so  antipathetic  to  him. 
If  a  commentator   is  devoid  of  sympathy  for  the  ancient 


Recent  Research  261 


author  about  whom  he  is  writing,  or  lacks  insight  into  the 
more  delicate  and  subtle  aspects  of  the  text  which  he  is 
discussing,  I  can  hardly  force  myself  to  read  him  ;  he  has 
nothing  for  me ;  and  I  neither  learn  from  him  (except  that 
he  sometimes  makes  me  understand  through  antagonism 
passages  which  I  might  otherwise  have  failed  to  comprehend) 
nor  criticise  him.  But  we  have  just  seen  how  Dr.  Sanday 
can  respect  and  admire  five-sixths  of  an  author  whose  re- 
maining sixth  part  moves  him  to  indignation. 

Now  let  us  see  how  he  expresses  himself  about  another 
writer,  who  "  has  directness  and  ability,  and  never  minces 
matters  ;  as  I  have  said,  he  belongs  to  no  school,  and  repeats 
the  formulae  of  no  school.  But  he  writes  in  the  style  of  a 
Prussian  official.  He  has  all  the  arrogance  of  a  certain  kind 
of  common  sense.  His  mind  is  mathematical,  with  something 
of  the  stiffness  of  mathematics — a  mind  of  the  type  which 
is  supposed  to  ask  of  everything,  What  does  it  prove? 
It  is  a  mind  that  applies  the  standards  to  which  it  is  accus- 
tomed with  very  little  play  of  historical  imagination.  If 
it  cannot  at  once  see  the  connection  of  cause  and  effect, 
it  assumes  that  there  is  no  connection.  It  makes  no  allow- 
ance for  deficiencies  of  knowledge,  for  scantiness  of  sources 
and  scantiness  of  detail  contained  in  the  sources,  for  the  very 
imperfect  reconstruction  of  the  background  that  alone  is 
possible  to  us.  If  there  is  upon  the  surface  some  appearance 
of  incoherence  or  inconsequence,  it  is  at  once  inferred  that 
there  is  real  incoherence  and  inconsequence.  And  the 
narrative  is  straightway  rejected  as  history ;  though  a 
little  reflection  would  show  that  life  is  full  of  these  seeming 
inconsistencies,  and  would  be  fuller  still  if  our  knowledge  of 
the  events  going  on  around  us  did  not  supply  us  with  the 
links  of  connection  which  make  them  intelligible.     He  argues 


262  VIII.  A  Criticism  of 

as  though  we  could  exhaust  the  motives  of  the  actors  in 
events  that  happened  nearly  nineteen  hundred  years  ago, 
whereas  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  we  cannot  in  the 
least  come  near  exhausting  them." 

On  one  somewhat  important  matter  I  find  myself,  to  my 
great  regret,  distinctly  in  opposition  to  my  friend  the 
Author  (to  whose  counsel  and  help  and  never-failing  en- 
couragement I  owe  so  much).  He  seems  to  me  to  estimate 
too  highly  the  possibilities  of  discovery  which  purely  literary 
criticism  offers :  while  I  seem  to  him  to  undervalue  them. 
This  is  a  question  that  requires  more  space  than  can  here 
be  given  to  it;  but  my  impression  is  that  the  great  and 
epoch-making  steps  in  advance  come  from  non-literary, 
external,  objective  discovery,  and  that  the  literary  critics 
adopt  these  with  admirable  and  praiseworthy  facility  as  soon 
as  the  facts  are  established,  and  quickly  forget  that  they 
themselves  (or  their  predecessors)  used  to  think  otherwise, 
and  would  still  be  thinking  otherwise,  if  new  facts  had  not 
been  supplied  to  them.  Nothing  gives  me  such  interest,  and 
so  illustrates  human  nature,  as  to  observe  how  principles  of 
literary  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  were  accepted 
as  self-evident  when  I  was  studying  the  subject  under 
Robertson  Smith's  guidance  about  1878,  are  now  scorned 
and  set  aside  as  quite  absurd  and  outworn  by  the  modem 
literary  critics.  But  it  was  not  literary  criticism  that  made 
the  advance:  it  was  hard  external  facts  that  turned  the 
literary  critics  from  their  old  path,  and  they  have  utterly 
forgotten  how  the  change  came  about. 

Moreover,  it  sometimes  seems  to  my  humble  judgment 
that  Dr.  Sanday  is  unconsciously  guided  by  the  prepossession 
that  there  must  be  a  certain  residuum  of  truth  in  some 
clever  treatise  which   he   has   been    reading;  and  he  finds 


Recent  Research  263 


this  residuum  by  dividing  the  writer's  total  estimated  result 
by  10  or  by  100. 

He  finds  the  Engh'sh  scholars  on  the  whole  to  be  nearer 
the  truth,  the  Germans  to  be  more  educative  and  suggestive. 
I  agree  with  him  to  a  certain  extent.  I  owe  to  the  Germans 
almost  all  the  stimulus  of  my  early  years,  and  I  owe  to 
several  of  them  also  almost  all  the  encouragement  which 
I  received  at  the  beginning  when  I  needed  it  most,  and  for 
which  I  can  never  be  sufficiently  grateful  to  them.  But  now 
I  find  the  English  most  useful,  because  they  often  give  me 
facts  without  views,  while  the  majority  of  the  German  writers 
start  from  a  definite  and  fixed  theory,  which  one  may  almost 
call  a  prejudice.  They  assume — many  of  them — the  whole 
in  the  opening  paragraph  of  the  book ;  and  often  it  seems 
as  if  one  could  draw  out  the  whole  reasoning  of  a  treatise 
in  inexorable  logic  after  reading  the  opening  assumptions. 

I  must  find  room  for  another  saying,  which  seems  pro- 
foundly true  and  far  too  generally  neglected  :  "  The  fact 
is  that  the  Judaism  of  the  time  of  Christ  had  a  wider  and 
more  open  horizon  than  that  of  a  hundred  years  later.  The 
result  of  the  terrific  and  almost  superhuman  efforts  that 
the  Jews  made  to  throw  off  the  Roman  yoke  was  a  long 
reaction  that  has  lasted  almost  to  our  own  time.  When 
the  great  effort  failed,  Judaism  withdrew  into  its  shell  : 
it  contracted  its  outlook  and  turned  in  upon  itself.  It  gave 
up  the  hope  of  Divine  intervention  that  had  at  one  time 
seemed  so  near,  and  was  content  to  brood  upon  its  past." 
Several  times,  in  a  quite  different  line  of  thought,  I  have  had 
to  protest  against  the  prejudice  that  the  later  Jewish  customs 
and  thought  can  be  regarded  as  the  norm  according  to 
which  we  must  judge  about  Jewish  practice  and  views  in 
the   first   century   before   and   after  Christ.      Dr.    Sanday 


264  VIII.  ^  Criticism  of 


here  states  the  true  historical  principle  in  a  direct  and 
uncompromising  fashion ;  and  the  passage  from  which 
I  have  quoted  a  few  words  is  as  well  worth  study  as  any- 
thing in  the  whole  space  of  these  carefully  thought-out 
lectures. 

In  the  style  one  is  often  also  struck  by  an  apparently 
unconscious  tendency  on  Dr.  Sanday's  part  to  use  military 
metaphors,  to  think  like  a  soldier,  and  to  count  and  marshal 
his  thoughts  as  methodically  as  a  general  estimates  and  orders 
his  force,  not  after  the  bold  and  creative  fashion  of  a  Caesar, 
who  discomfits  his  opponent  by  sheer  audacity  and  almost 
superhuman  rapidity,  and  who  imbues  his  army  with  some- 
thing of  his  own  genius  and  resourcefulness,  but  after  the 
fashion  of  a  capable  leader,  trained  to  make  the  best  use  of 
the  forces  that  are  placed  at  his  disposal.  So,  for  example, 
"  exactly  five-sixths  of  Jiilicher's  work  is  good  and  even  admir- 
able "  ;  and  "  the  histories  of  Elijah  and  Elisha  are  much  nearer 
— indeed  quite  near — to  the  events  ". 

Other  examples  of  similar  character  are : — 

"  Weinel's  book  is  up  to  a  good  average,  and  Steinmann's 
perhaps  somewhat  above  it "  (p.  44). 

"  I  welcome  much  of  his  criticism  both  on  the  right  hand 
and  on  the  left "  (p.  44). 

"  With  us  dashing  and  desultory  raids  are  apt  to  take  the 
place  of  what  is  in  Germany  the  steady  disciplined  advance 
of  a  regularly  mobilised  army  "  (p.  42). 

"Whatever  advance  is  made  is  made  all  along  the  line" 

(p.  41). 

Taken  in  conjunction  with  what  is  said  in  the  opening 

paragraph  of  the  present  article,  these  extracts  seem  to  be 

indicative  of  the  methodical  character  of  the  Author's  mind 

and  the  orderly  progress  of  his  studies.     The  development 


Recent  Research  265 


of  a  scholar  is  always  an  interesting  study,  certainly  to  other 
scholars,  and  probably  also  to  the  world  at  large ;  and  this 
quality  seems  to  lie  at  the  basis  of  the  Author's  intellectual 
power.  In  this  connection  I  need  make  no  apology  for 
another  observation,  even  though  it  may  perhaps  seem  to 
some  people  to  savour  of  a  too  personal  scrutiny. 

In  this  book  which  now  lies  before  us  I  am  struck  with 
one  difference,  and,  as  I  venture  to  think,  improvement 
in  the  style  from  his  earlier  writings — I  am  not  referring 
to  English  composition  but  to  scientific  exposition  of  opinion. 
Dr.  Sanday  uses  the  simple  first  person  singular  more 
frequently  than  he  did  in  an  earlier  period  of  his  work. 
This  usage  is  not  necessarily  egotistic ;  in  scientific  work 
it  is  rarely  egotistic ;  it  is  the  briefest  and  most  direct  way 
of  calling  attention  to  the  subjectivity,  and  therefore  neces- 
sarily the  uncertainty,  of  a  statement :  it  is  a  danger  flag,  not 
a  claim  of  personal  ownership.  When  a  view  seems  to  be 
proved  and  trustworthy,  one  states  it  in  the  impersonal 
language  of  science ;  when  it  is  advisable  to  call  attention 
to  the  subjective  element  in  a  view,  and  to  warn  the  reader 
that  it  is  as  yet  only  opinion  (as  one  believes,  true  opinion), 
but  not  thoroughly  reasoned  and  assured  knowledge,^  one 
uses  the  personal  form. 

^  In  Platonic  language,  it  is  aXi\i^s  Sd^a,  but  not  iinffritnn. 


IX. 

HISTORICAL  GEOGRAPHY  OF  THE 
HOLY  LAND. 


IX. 

HISTORICAL  GEOGRAPHY  OF  THE 
HOLY  LAND. 

In  venturing  to  write  a  review  of  Professor  G.  A.  Smith's 
Historical  Geography  of  the  Holy  Land,  I  feel  somewhat  like 
"the  man  in  the  street"  attempting  to  criticise  a  work  of 
fine  scholarship.  But  the  wish  that  I  should  do  so  has  been 
expressed  by  those  whom  I  am  unwilling  to  disobey  ;  and 
perhaps  the  impression  made  by  the  book  on  a  bystander, 
who  is  interested  in  the  game  of  Old  Testament  study, 
though  not  himself  able  to  play,  may  possess  some  slight 
interest,  and  warrant  the  following  paragraphs  in  appearing 
before  the  public.  Besides  having  myself  studied  with  some 
minuteness  the  Historical  Geography  of  another  part  of 
Western  Asia,  I  have  had  the  advantage  of  frequently  talk- 
ing about  the  early  history  of  the  Hebrew  people  with  my 
friend  Professor  Robertson  Smith,  and  of  reading  under  his 
guidance  in  1878  everything  that  he  thought  most  valuable 
on  the  criticism  and  interpretation  of  the  Mosaic  books  and 
the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament — a  long  piece  of 
work  which  afterwards  proved  a  most  valuable  education  for 
the  problems  that  face  the  historical  investigator  in  Asia 
Minor.  Naturally,  after  such  a  course  as  was  marked  out 
by  Robertson  Smith,  one  retains  a  permanent  interest  in 
the  subject;  and  this  interest  has  made  me  welcome  most 
heartily  a  book  which  attacks  that  fascinating  problem  in  a 

(269) 


270  IX.  Historical  Geography 

new  way,  bringing  new  methods  of  analysis  to  the  investiga- 
tion, and  applying  them  with  a  union  of  boldness  and  caution 
and  free,  wide  view  that  is  most  refreshing  after  the  niggling 
way  in  which  many  of  the  recent  investigations  about  Asia 
Minor  (over  which  I  have  had  to  spend  too  much  time)  are 
composed.  Here  we  have  an  investigator  who  sets  himself 
to  master  the  problem  as  a  whole,  who  tries  to  conceive 
clearly  the  general  disposition  and  character  of  the  land 
about  which  he  is  to  treat,  to  view  it  always  in  association 
with  man  and  with  history,  and  to  understand  the  interrela- 
tion of  its  parts,  and  then  proceeds  to  take  his  readers  along 
the  same  path  that  he  has  trod.  He  has  seen  the  places 
with  the  reconstructive  eye  and  the  warm,  creative  imagina- 
tion of  the  historian ;  he  has  inhaled  the  atmosphere  with 
the  love  and  enthusiasm  that  breathe  through  his  pages,  and 
make  the  reader  fancy  that  he  can  catch  the  same  breath. 

A  writer  on  Historical  Geography  could  get  nowhere 
else  so  favourable  a  field  as  Professor  G.  A.  Smith  has  found. 
Not  only  does  an  eternal  interest  cling  to  it ;  it  is  also  a  land 
of  singularly  well-marked  features,  easy  to  understand  and 
easy  to  bring  home  to  the  reader's  understanding ;  and 
further,  it  is  a  small  land,  which  can  be  pictured  with  that 
breadth  and  fulness  of  treatment  that  are  necessary  to  mal<e 
the  scenes  and  facts  live  before  the  reader — and  yet,  within 
reasonable  compass.  And,  having  a  good  subject,  the  author 
uses  his  advantage  to  the  full,  giving  us  a  book  which  is  of 
the  first  importance  as  opening  up  a  fresh  path  of  study.  It 
applies  the  modern  methods  of  united  historical  and  geo- 
graphical investigation  to  the  department  where  preposses- 
sions and  inherited  prejudices  were  strongest,  and  where 
methods  too  purely  literary  absorbed  the  energy  of  the  more 
free  and  unprejudiced  scholars.     It  applies  them,  too,  with 


of  the  Holy  Land  271 

a  spirit  of  free,  lofty  and  generous  enthusiasm,  that  makes 
it  fascinating  from  the  first  to  the  last  page.  It  is,  of  course, 
far  from  completing  its  task  ;  it  is  really  only  the  first  open- 
ing up  of  what  will  hereafter  prove  a  fruitful  field  of  study. 
No  one  appreciates  that  fact  better  than  Professor  Smith 
himself;  and  when  the  critic  tries  to  estimate  the  future  that 
is  opened  up  before  us  by  this  book — in  other  words,  the 
problems  that  it  leaves  unattempted  or  unsolved, — he  feels 
that  the  author  himself  would  be  best  able  to  look  out  over 
the  vista  in  front. 

There  remain  many  sites  which  have  to  be  localised 
much  more  precisely  before  the  full  bearing  of  the  incidents 
connected  with  them  becomes  plain.  This  important  part  of 
the  subject  Professor  Smith  has  avoided — wisely  and  rightly 
for  his  immediate  purpose — but  it  must  be  faced  hereafter 
either  by  him  or  by  others.  See,  for  example,  pages  221,  222, 
where  Professor  Smith  brings  out  very  clearly  both  the  local 
character  and  vividness  of  the  tale  of  Samson,  and  also  the 
obscurity  in  which  it  must  remain  involved  until  the  localities 
are  more  fully  identified. 

Book  II.,  Western  Palestine,  nearly  400  pages  in  length, 
is  the  main  part  of  the  volume,  and  shows  Professor  Smith  at 
his  best.  He  is  most  familiar  with  this  part  of  the  country, 
and  he  has  put  forth  all  his  strength  on  the  elucidation  of 
the  many  incidents  which  he  has  to  introduce.  Every  page, 
almost,  seems  more  interesting  than  the  preceding ;  one 
must  go  through  it  steadily  with  the  map  and  the  authorities 
by  one's  side  in  order  to  appreciate  the  character  of  the 
book.  The  only  criticism  which  one  can  make  on  it  in 
reasonable  compass  is — read  it. 

Book  III.,  on  Eastern  Palestine,  seemed  to  me  less  satis- 
factory than  any  other  part  of  the  book.     The  questions 


272  IX.  Historical  Geography 

which  have  to  be  treated  here  are  not  so  purely  Hebrew, 
but  take  us  into  a  wider  range  of  history.  Perhaps  it  is 
due  to  the  necessity  of  bringing  the  book,  already  a  long 
one,  to  an  end ;  perhaps  it  arises  from  the  fact  that  much  of 
the  history  of  the  East  country  appeals  to  a  different  class 
of  readers ;  but  the  treatment  as  a  whole  is  thinner  in  this 
part ;  the  subject  has  not  naturally  the  same  interest  as 
that  of  Book  II.,  and  is,  I  think,  not  handled  with  so  sure  a 
touch  as  the  main  part  of  the  work.  To  take  one  example : 
there  are  on  page  635  several  statements  from  which  I  must 
express  dissent.  Professor  Smith  is  here  giving  examples 
of  the  difference  of  tone  between  Christian  and  pagan  epi- 
taphs in  the  Hauran ;  and  contrasts  the  hopelessness  of  the 
latter  with  the  "  quiet  confidence  "  of  the  former.  Such  a 
contrast  is  often  obvious  in  literature ;  but  I  doubt  whether 
it  can  fairly  be  traced  in  the  epitaphs  of  either  the  Hauran 
or  of  Asia  Minor. 

He  says  "«at  o-y,  Even  thou,  is  a  common  memento  morV\ 
I  have  always  thought  that  this  is  the  supposed  reply  of  the 
deceased  to  the  greeting  presumed  to  be  uttered  by  the 
passer-by  ;  it  occurs  sometimes  in  the  fully  expressed  form, 
Xalpe'  %ai/5e  «««•  ci^.  i-^-,  "  Farewell,"  "  Fare-thou-well 
also".  Again  we  read  that  "  *  thou  hast  finished '  is  a  com- 
mon epitaph  ".  But  the  verb  reXevTcio)  had  come  to  be  used 
regularly  in  the  sense  of  "to  dze"  from  the  fifth  century 
B.C.  downwards  ;  and  no  such  connotation  as  Professor  Smith 
supposes  could,  I  think,  have  been  present  to  the  epitaph- 
writers  of  the  Hauran.  Hence  the  epitaph  which  he  next 
quotes  must  be  translated,  "  Titus,  Malchus'  son,  farewell ! 
Thou  hast  died  ere  thy  prime  (at  the  age)  of  twelve  years — 
Farewell."  The  last  word  is  the  reply  of  Titus  to  the 
greeting,  and  the  epitaph  is  far  from  favouring  the  contrast 


of  the  Holy  Land  273 

which  Professor  Smith  draws.  Still  less  do  his  next  examples 
support  his  case:  "the  dead  are  told  that  theirs  is  the  in- 
evitable fate,  no  one  is  immortal".  But  the  formula  on 
which  he  relies,  oySet?  d9dvaT0<i,  is  very  often  Christian, 
and  not,  as  Professor  Smith  argues,  pagan.  Once  or  twice  it 
occurs  in  doubtful  cases,  but  Waddington  2032,  2050,  and 
Ewing  163,^  are  epitaphs  containing  the  common  and  typical 

Christian    formula,    ivOdSe    Ketrat,    Here    lies ;   while 

Waddington  2459  ^s>  ^^  ^^e  editor  remarks,  clearly  Christian 
(being  one  of  the  most  interesting  Christian  epitaphs  of 
Eastern  Palestine,  belonging  probably  to  the  third  century, 
and  being  engraved  while  Christian  formulae  were  still  fluid, 
and  had  not  yet  become  fixed  and  stereotyped).  Wadding- 
ton 1 897  is  also  almost  certainly  Christian  ;  the  name  Domi- 
tilla  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  early  Christian  names. 
The  formula  Odpaet,  Be  of  good  cheer,  which  often  precedes 
ov8eU  d6dvaT0<i,  would  alone  be  almost  sufficient  to  mark 
the  whole  as  Christian,  and  to  show  that  the  hopelessness 
which  Professor  Smith  finds  in  the  phrase  is  not  really  there  : 
the  precise  sense  in  which  the  words  should  be  taken  is  "  no 
one  is  free  from  death,"  rather  than,  as  he  maintains,  "  no 
one  is  immortal  ".^  It  is  quite  probable  that  the  phrase  was 
adopted  from  pagan  epitaphs  ^  by  the  Christians,  as  many 

1  Mr.  Ewing's  inscriptions  will  be  published  in  the  ensuing  Quarterly 
Statement  of  the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund  by  Mr.  A.  A.  G.  Wright  and 
Mr.  A.  Souter,  two  of  my  recent  pupils  in  Aberdeen. 

2  In  n.  4  he  quotes  Wadd.  1986  as  pagan,  but  Waddington  considers  it 
as  Christian  (in  my  opinion  rightly).  In  n.  5  "  Wadd.  2429  "  seems  to  be  a 
wrong  reference. 

3  [Examples  probably  pagan  occur  in  Bulletin  de  Corr.  Hell.,  1902,  pp. 
175,  186 ;  but  it  is  elsewhere  usually  Christian  (see  Studies  in  the  Eastern 
Roman  Provinces,  igo6,  p.  129).  Fourteen  years'  further  experience  has  shown 
how  frequently  the  exclamations,  which  are  treated  in  the  text,  occur  in 
Christian  inscriptions.] 

18 


274  IX.  Historical  Geography 

other  forms  were,  but  most  of  the  cases  in  which  it  occurs  are 
clearly  Christian,  and  the  contrast  which  Professor  Smith 
founds  on  it  cannot  be  maintained. 

In  another  interesting  little  inscription,  mentioned  on  the 
same  page,  Professor  Smith  restores  fi&rh,  Travra  Ta(^09), 
After  all  things  a  tomb;  but  on  the  analogy  of  common 
formulae,  such  as  6  ySto?  ravra,  Life  is — this,  I  should  prefer 
fxera  Trdvra  Ta{vra)y  After  all — this.^ 

I  have  dwelt  on  this  page  at  some  length,  because  the 
h'ne  of  demarcation  between  Christian  and  non-Christian 
epitaphs  is  a  very  delicate  one,  and  there  is  no  point  in 
antiquity  on  which  more  mistakes  are  made,  while  it  is  of 
peculiar  interest  and  even  of  importance  to  notice  the  gradual 
steps  by  which  the  Christians  separated  themselves  from  the 
customs  and  ways  of  ordinary  society  around  them,  and 
created  a  code  of  manners  and  forms  distinctive  of  them- 
:selves.^ 

Perhaps  some  readers  may  find  the  discussion  of  general 
principles  contained  in  Book  I.,  The  Land  as  a  Whole,  the 
least  interesting  part  of  this  fascinating  volume ;  but  for  my 
own  part,  it  appeals  to  me  with  almost  greater  interest  than 
Books  II.  or  III.  The  descriptive  part  of  Book  I.  is  lumin- 
ous and  most  successful,  but  I  confess  to  being  rather  dis- 

i  An  excellent  parallel  in  thought  and  in  expression  occurs  in  an  inscrip- 
tion of  the  Phrygian  Hierapolis,  which  seems  to  Waddington  No.  1687  (as 
well  as  to  myself)  to  be  Christian,  eiSis  in  rh  reXos  vfiwv  tov  piov  ravra.  It 
is  given  more  accurately  in  many  points  as  No.  28  in  my  forthcoming  Cities 
and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia.  In  Bulletin  de  Corr.  Hell.,  iii.,  p.  144,  a  long 
metrical  epitaph  and  curse  ends  with  ravra  in  a  line  by  itself:  "So  much". 

*  I  notice  also  that  on  p.  544  Professor  Smith  remarks  that  Tacitus  (whom 
I  had  quoted  on  my  side  in  a  discussion  of  the  name  Ituraei)  is  against  me :  he 
must  have  made  some  mistake,  for  the  MSS.  and  all  good  editions  are  with 
me.  Some  school  editions  and  English  translations  use  the  term  Ituraea  as 
a  noun,  which  is  unknown  (as  I  have  proved)  to  the  ancients. 


of  the  Holy  Land  275 


appointed  with  the  general  reflections  on  the  bearing  which 
Historical  Geography  has  on  the  criticism  of  the  Hebrew 
authorities.  These  are  rather  vaguely  and  slightly  indicated  ; 
they  seem  to  express  the  general  ideas  with  which  one  might 
approach  the  subject  for  the  first  time  rather  than  the  cream 
of  the  results  which  one  gathers  from  the  doing  of  the  work  ; 
and  I  should  imagine  that  chapter  v.,  in  which  they  are 
contained,  was  written  before  Book  U.,  and  did  not  spring 
from  a  mind  filled  with  the  facts  and  the  method  applied  in 
that  part. 

The  first  four  chapters  of  Book  I.  deal  with  "  the  place 
of  Syria  in  the  world's  history,"  and  with  the  form,  climate 
and  scenery  of  the  land ;  and,  finally,  chapter  vi.  places  the 
reader  at  two  points  of  view  from  which  to  acquire  a  general 
idea  of  the  effect  produced  by  the  characteristics  described 
in  the  preceding  chapters,  viz.,  on  the  deck  of  a  steamer^ 
and  on  the  top  of  Mount  Ebal  beside  Shechem.  The  rela- 
tion of  Arabia  to  Syria  (including  Palestine)  and  of  Syria 
to  the  outer  world  are  set  before  us  very  suggestively  in 
chapter  i.  The  Arabian  tribes,  always  in  process  of  growing 
too  numerous  for  their  bare  and  barren  land,  are  ever  also  in 
process  of  forcing  themselves  into  the  surrounding  countries, 
sometimes  in  peaceful  emigration,  generally  in  the  guise  of 
marauders  or  conquerors  ;  but  of  the  four  paths  open  to  them, 
the  path  of  Syria  is  the  easiest,  and  the  one  most  trodden 
by  them  throughout  history.  The  frontier  tribes  of  the 
Arabian  wilderness  have  been  constantly  pressing  in  on  the 
fertile  lands  of  Syria.  So  long  as  Syria  has  been  held  by 
strong,  energetic  rulers  the  nomads  are  kept  back,  or  are 

*0n  p.  119  there  is  a  harshness  of  expression.  The  steamer  is  sailing 
north  from  Jaffa,  but  the  places  seen  are  enumerated  as  going  south.  Yet  we 
cannot  read  south  for  north. 


276  IX.  Historical  Geography 

allowed  to  enter  only  as  peaceful  emigrants  or  as  useful 
mercenaries  in  the  service  of  the  Syrian  Government ;  for, 
while  their  warlike  and  restless  character  makes  them  a 
terror  to  the  settled  Syrian  peoples,  who  become  steadily 
less  fit  for  war  by  continuance  of  peace,  it  also  makes  them 
excellent  soldiers  to  recruit  the  Syrian  armies.  Thus  it  is 
impossible  for  any  Arabian  tribe  to  continue  very  long  a 
frontier-tribe ;  an  unvarying  law  pushes  on  each  in  succes- 
sion towards  and  over  the  frontier ;  and  this  constant  immi- 
gration tends  to  invigorate  the  Syrian  population  and  keep 
it  from  stagnating  in  Oriental  peasant  life.  So  the  Hebrews 
forced  their  way  into  Canaan.  So  also  the  Ituraeans,  whom 
we  first  hear  about  in  the  late  period  when  Chronicles  was 
composed  ^  as  warring  on  the  eastern  frontier  against  Reuben, 
Gad  and  Manasseh,  gradually  forced  their  way  on  towards 
Anti-Lebanon  (in  the  position  where  they  are  represented  in 
the  maps  attached  to  Professor  Smith's  work)  and  even 
penetrated  in  part  across  Anti-Lebanon  into  the  fertile  valley 
of  "  Hollow  Syria,"  taking  advantage  of  the  disorganisation 
caused  by  the  decay  of  the  Seleucid  Empire  after  B.C.  190. 
Had  not  the  Seleucid  power  been  soon  replaced  by  the 
strong  hand  of  Rome,  in  all  probability  the  Itur^i  would 
have  overrun  Syria  entirely,  in  pursuance  of  that  eternal  law 
of  succession  by  which  the  effete  dynasties  and  peoples  of 
the  East  are  swept  away  by  fresh  vigorous  conquerors,  a 
process  which  the  support  of  Europe,  propping  up  the  worn- 
out  stock  of  Turkish  or  Hindu  or  other  dynasties,  has  some- 
times stopped,  always  to  the  great  detriment  of  their  subjects. 
There  seems  to  be  a  curious  and  deep-seated  variation 

^  While  these  wars  are  projected  into  a  remoter  period  by  the  writer,  it  is 
probable  that  he  took  the  name  of  this  nomad  tribe  from  the  facts  of  his  own 
time.     The  Septuagint  reads  'iToupajot  in  i  Chron.  v.  19. 


of  the  Holy  Land  277 

between  two  different  points  of  view  as  regards  the  religion 
and  development  of  Israel.  We  read,  e.g.,  "  Monotheism 
was  born,  not,  as  M.  Renan  says,  in  Arabia,  but  in  Syria" 
(p.  113) ;  and  Professor  Smith  goes  on  to  argue  that,  as  the 
character  of  Syria  and  its  peoples  is  so  opposed  to  mono- 
theism, we  are  driven  to  "  the  belief  that  the  monotheism 
which  appeared  upon  it  was  ultimately  due  to  direct  super- 
human revelation".  So  also  on  page  90,  "those  spiritual 
forces  which,  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  nature,  did  create 
upon  Syria  the  monotheistic  creed  of  Israel ". 

Such  passages  as  these  are  quite  in  accordance  with  that 
view  of  Hebrew  history  which  sees  in  it  a  gradual  rise  to- 
wards a  loftier  and  purer  conception  of  God  and  of  the 
Divine  nature,  as  the  people  under  the  guidance  of  its 
prophets  disengaged  itself  step  by  step  from  the  grosser 
religion  which  was  once  shared  by  the  Hebrews  with  the 
other  Semitic  races.  On  that  theory  it  would  be  quite 
natural  to  assert  positively  that  the  Hebrew  monotheism 
arose  in  Syria,  not  in  Arabia.  But  alongside  of  this  view, 
sometimes  even  in  the  same  paragraph  with  it,  we  find 
another,  which  seems — so  far  as  I  can  venture  to  judge — 
to  be  inconsistent  with  it,  and  to  involve  an  opposite  view 
of  the  character  of  Hebrew  history,  viz.^  the  traditional 
view  that  the  lofty  character  of  Hebrew  religion  was  im- 
pressed on  it,  once  for  all,  in  Arabia,  not  in  Syria,  that 
constant  lapses  from  the  purity  of  this  religion  occurred 
amid  the  seductions  and  temptations  of  Syrian  surround- 
ings, that  the  prophets  resisted  these  lapses  and  recalled 
the  people  to  the  original  purity  of  their  faith,  expounding 
and  unfolding  in  detail  the  character  of  that  faith,  and 
applying  it  to  each  new  political  and  social  situation  that 
arose,  but  not  making  it  loftier  or  purer,  for  it  was  abso- 


278  IX.  Historical  Geography 

lutely  lofty  and  pure  from  the  first  Take,  for  example, 
the  words  on  page  89:  "the  conception  of  Israel's  early 
history  which  prevails  in  Deuteronomy,  viz.,  that  the  nation 
suffered  a  declension  from  a  pure  and  simple  estate  of  life 
and  religion  to  one  which  was  gross  and  sensuous,  from  the 
worship  of  their  own  deity  to  the  worship  of  many  local 
gods,  is  justified  in  the  main — I  do  not  say  in  details,  but  in 
the  main — by  the  geographical  data,  and  by  what  we  know 
to  have  been  the  influence  of  these  at  all  periods  in  history  ". 
But,  in  truth,  what  are  called  the  moderate  critics  seem 
all — in  the  rough  judgment  of  ignorant  outsiders,  such  as 
the  present  writer — to  be  involved  in  the  same  double  point 
of  view,  and  to  be  attempting  to  combine  two  different  (and 
I  would  add  irreconcilable)  theories  in  their  attitude  towards 
the  history  of  Israel.  I  am,  of  course,  not  speaking  about 
the  recognition  of  the  composite  nature  of  the  law-books 
and  the  older  class  of  historical  records  :  those  who  do  not 
recognise  that  fact  occupy  a  position  so  diametrically  oppo- 
site to  mine  that  we  can  see  nothing  alike,  and  there  can  be 
no  profitable  discussion  between  us.  But  to  those  who 
recognise  that  fact  there  remains  a  further,  and,  I  think, 
far  more  important  question,  viz.,  as  to  the  relation  between 
the  various  component  parts  of  these  books — one  might  say 
between  the  different  strata,  were  it  not  that  the  very  word 
strata  implies  and  presupposes  a  settled  opinion  in  regard 
to  the  question  which  is  put  before  us  for  settlement.  That 
question  has  been  answered  by  almost  all  critics  in  one  way, 
viz.,  the  relation  between  the  components  is  one  of  time,  and 
the  differences  between  them  are  due  to  gradual  develop- 
ment of  religious  feeling  and  organisation  in  the  nation. 
Those  critics  who  carry  out  that  principle  logically  and  con- 
sistently form  the  extreme  critical  school ;  those  who  accept 


oj  the  Holy  Land  279 

it,  but  shrink  with  wise  caution  from  the  full  consequences  of 
their  own  position,  are  the  moderate  critics.  Professor  Driver 
puts  the  point  in  his  usual  clear,  well-defined  and  unmistak- 
able way,  in  his  Introduction,  page  80 :  "  Can  any  one  read 
the  injunctions  respecting  sacrifices  and  feasts  in  Exodus 
xxiii.  14-19  beside  those  in  P  {Lev.  i.-vii.,  Num.  xxviii.- 
xxix.,  for  instance),  and  not  feel  that  some  centuries  must 
have  intervened  between  the  simplicity  which  marks  the  one 
and  the  minute  specialisation  which  is  the  mark  of  the  other  ?  " 
Any  one  who  feels  compelled  to  give  to  that  question  the 
answer  that  Dr.  Driver  desires  is  making  the  assumption 
that  the  principle  of  the  extreme  critical  school  is  right, 
though  his  natural  practical  sense  makes  him  shrink  from 
carrying  it  out  with  ruthless  logic.  Neither  the  wise  states- 
man nor  the  wise  scholar  can  permit  himself  to  be  thoroughly 
consistent  in  carrying  into  practice  the  one-sided  and  in- 
complete principles  which  occasionally  he  does  not  shrink 
from  enunciating  in  theory.  It  is  a  fair  answer  to  Dr. 
Driver's  question  to  say  that  other  reasons  besides  lapse  of 
time  have  been  found  sufficient  to  cause  differences  of  this 
class,^  and  that  no  sufficient  reasons  have  yet  been  brought 
forward  to  prove  that  no  other  cause  except  progressive 
development  can  account  for  the  great  difference  which  all 

'For  example,  if  in  a.d.  i860  two  able  American  statesmen,  deep  in 
practical  politics,  but  of  opposite  parties,  had  been  set  separately  to  the  task 
of  formulating  the  principles  of  the  American  constitution,  they  would  have 
produced  very  different  books,  at  variance  on  many  most  fundamental  points. 
Of  course  the  many  centuries  of  organised  civilisation  that  lay  behind  them 
would  have  forced  on  them  a  great  amount  of  similarity  in  other  points ; 
whereas  no  causes  existed  to  produce  such  similarity  in  the  case  of  the 
Hebrew  tribes,  who  brought  with  them  into  Palestine,  as  we  assume,  a  lofty 
religion  and  moral  law,  which  none  of  them  had  fully  comprehended  and 
worked  into  their  nature,  much  less  developed  into  a  practical  working 
system  of  ritual  and  life. 


28o  IX.  Historical  Geography 

of  us  wish  to  understand.  I  entertain  no  opinion  on  the 
point :  I  am  merely  seeking  for  information  ;  and  I  do  not 
find  any  one  who  faces  fairly  the  question  as  a  whole.  All 
seem  to  me  to  start  with  their  faces  set  determinedly 
towards  one  side  of  it  alone. 

When  I  say  "  no  sufficient  reasons "  for  the  answer  ex- 
pected have  been  given  as  yet,  it  is  necessary  to  except  the 
thorough  and  "advanced"  critics,  whose  position  is  quite 
logical  and  complete.  They  carry  out  thoroughly  their 
view  that  a  gradual,  progressive  and  perfectly  natural  de- 
velopment took  place  on  the  soil  of  Syria,  and  infer  that 
those  parts  of  the  Hebrew  documents  which  imply  a  de- 
clension from  a  primitive  revelation  spring  from  a  late  mis- 
representation of  early  history,  in  which  the  steps  of  ascent 
were  described  as  successive  recoveries  from  lapses  and 
errors.  Professor  Smith  seems  in  some  places  to  use  this 
principle,  and  yet  on  the  whole  to  declare  that  geographical 
study  is  opposed  to  it.  But  it  would  lead  us  too  far  to  ex- 
emplify and  make  clear  the  results  which,  if  I  may  venture 
to  criticise  his  method,  seem  to  me  to  spring  from  this 
unconscious  inconsistency  in  principle.^  I  may  however  say 
that,  if  a  fuller  discussion  of  the  subject  were  possible,  I 
should  take  exception  to  Professor  Smith's  fundamental  con- 

^  A  few  slips  of  expression  may  be  noticed  here,  which  it  would  be  well 
to  correct  in  a  later  edition :  p.  25,  1.  5,  Africa  was  not  made  a  Roman  pro- 
vince till  B.C.  146  ;  pp.  22-23,  note,  read  Kronos  for  Chronos,  and  fiatruKoi  for 
fifTvXai  (a  form  which  is  not  given  in  the  Thesaurus  of  Stephanus)  twice ;  p. 
17,  note,  it  is  too  vague  to  quote  "  Porphyry  in  the  Acta  Sanctorum,"  for 
there  are  over  sixty  folio  volumes  of  that  work;  p.  35,  1.  13,  the  number  fif- 
teen is  too  small  (I  notice  often  a  tendency  to  state  numbers  rather  low), 
Nazareth  is  decidedly  more  than  that  from  Cassarea,  and  is  not  within  fif- 
teen miles  of  any  point  on  the  coast,  if  the  maps  are  right.  The  accentuation 
of  Greek  words  is  often  incorrect  or  wholly  wanting  (see,  e.g.,  pp.  4,  22,  23, 
356,  406,  415,  442,  455,  483). 


of  the  Holy  Land  281 

trast  between  most  of  the  Semitic  religions  on  the  one  hand 
as  being  purely  polytheistic,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  three  ^ 
monotheistic  religions,  which  arose  among  the  Semites.  I 
cannot  agree  with  the  view  that  the  character  of  the  other 
Semitic  religions  is  adequately  expressed  by  calling  them 
"  polytheistic "  :  the  term  "  multiplicity-in-unity  "  seems  to 
express  their  nature  better.'"^ 

*"  Three  "  on  p.  28,  "  two  "  on  p.  29,  by  a  natural  variation  in  the 
thought. 

*See  above,  pp.  12  f.  and  200.  The  present  article  (published  in  1894)  is 
reprinted  mainly  in  order  to  illustrate  the  difficulty  that  we  of  the  West 
experience  in  attempting  to  understand  the  Semitic  and  Oriental  ideas  of 
religion ;  and  to  show  how  they  have  been  turned  over  in  the  writer's  mind 
year  after  year  with  a  growing  appreciation  of  the  difficulty.  Much  that  we 
call  "  Oriental "  in  religion  is  really  only  early  and  undeveloped,  and  our 
difficulty  is  to  project  ourselves  into  a  primitive  period  and  to  sympathise 
with  inchoate  thought. 


X. 

ST.  PAUL'S  USE  OF  METAPHORS  FROM 
GREEK  AND  ROMAN  LIFE. 


X. 

ST.  PAUL'S  USE  OF  METAPHORS  FROM 
GREEK  AND  ROMAN  LIFE. 

The  late  Dean  Howson,  in  an  interesting  little  book  on  the 
Metaphors  of  St.  Paul,  well  described  the  difference  between 
the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments  in  regard  to  the  range  and 
character  of  figurative  language.  In  the  New  Testament 
"  we  find  ourselves  in  contact  with  circumstances  far  more 
nearly  resembling  those  which  surround  us  in  modern  life  ; 
we  are  on  the  borders  or  in  the  heart  of  Greek  civilisation 
and  we  are  always  in  the  midst  of  the  Roman  Empire". 
Especially  is  this  the  case  with  St.  Paul.  He  was  a  master 
of  all  the  education  and  the  opportunities  of  his  time.  He 
turned  to  his  profit  and  to  the  advancement  of  his  great 
purpose  all  the  resources  of  civilisation.  He  draws  his 
illustrations  from  a  certain  range  of  thought  and  know- 
ledge, and  this  reveals  the  scope  of  his  education  and  his 
interests. 

Dean  Howson  points  out  that  "  his  metaphors  are  usually 
drawn,  not  from  the  operations  and  phenomena  of  the  natural 
world,  but  from  the  activities  and  the  outward  manifestations 
of  human  life,"  and  that  in  this  respect  he  stands  in  marked 
contrast  with  most  of  the  writers  in  the  Bible.  "  The  vapour, 
the  wind,  the  fountain,  beasts  and  birds  and  serpents,  the 
flower  of  the  grass,  the  waves  of  the  sea,  the  early  and  latter 
rain,  the  sun  risen  with  a  burning  heat — these  are  like  the 
figures  of  the  ancient  prophets,  and  there  is  more  imagery 

(28s) 


286  X.  5/.  PauVs 

of  this  kind  in  the  one  short  Epistle  of  St.  James  than  in  all 
the  speeches  and  letters  of  St  Paul  put  together."  ^ 

Paul's  favourite  figures  are  taken  from  the  midst  of  the 
busiest  human  society  and  city  life,  e.g.^  from  the  market — 
"  Owe  no  man  anything  but  to  love  one  another "  (Rom. 
xiii.  8),  "  I  am  debtor  both  to  Greeks  and  to  Barbarians " 
(Rom.  i.  14),  "Make  your  market  to  the  full  of  the  oppor- 
tunity"* (which  the  world  offers,  Eph.  v.  16;  CoL  iv.  5), 
"  wages"  (Rom.  vi.  23) — and  the  word  "  riches  "  is  a  specially 
characteristic  mark  of  his  style.  Another  metaphor  of  this 
class  is  "  I  count,"  Xoy i^ofiai ;  but  this  word,  though  strictly 
it  was  a  figure  taken  from  the  keeping  of  accounts,  was  in 
such  familiar  and  habitual  use  that  Paul  may  often  have  em- 
ployed it  without  any  clear  consciousness  of  the  metaphor, 
simply  adopting  it  from  ordinary  semi-philosophic  language. 
The  Romans  were  particularly  methodical  accountants,  and 
it  is  noteworthy  that  Paul  uses  this  and  other  terms  of  the 
same  kind  ^  more  frequently  in  writing  to  the  Romans  than 
anywhere  else,  as  if  unconsciously  his  mind  was  thinking  in 
a  more  Roman  fashion.  But  the  idea  is  Greek,  although 
such  metaphors  were  less  frequently  used  by  the  Greeks 
than  by  the  pragmatic  and  methodical  Romans ;  and  Paul 
of  course  had  no  need  to  go  to  Roman  life  in  search  of  it. 
Still  the  fact  remains  that  the  Romans  make  much  more 
frequent  use  of  the  metaphor,  *'  enter  in  the  account-book,* 
than  the  Greeks.  In  Cicero's  letters  this  metaphor  is  ex- 
tremely frequent. 

The  Romans  also  carefully  distinguish  between  entering 
on  the  credit  and  on  the  debit  side  of  the  account-book 
{Jerre  expensum  and  acceptum  referre\  whereas  Xoyi^ofun  is 

^Howson,  p.  131.  *St.  Paul  the  TravtlUr,  p.  149. 

^i<pu\iT7\s,  6<ptl\7ina,  four  times  in  Romans,  once  in  Gal.,  not  elsewhere. 


Greek  and  Roman  Metaphors  287 

used  for  both.  In  Rom.  ii.  26,  iv.  3,  4,  5,  6,  9,  11,  22,  24, 
ix.  8 ;  2  Cor.  v.  19,  xii.  6 ;  2  Tim.  iv.  16,  Xoyi^ofiat,  means 
"reckon  to  the  credit  of".  It  means  "  reckon  to  the  debit" 
{iraXiv,  per  contra,  on  the  opposite  page)  in  2  Cor.  x.  7. 
It  means  simply  "  enter  in  your  accounts "  in  Phil.  iv.  8,  iii. 
13  ;  Rom.  viii.  18,  iii.  28,  vi.  11 ;  Hebr.  xi.  19.^ 

Paul  is  rarely  interested  in  the  phenomena  of  nature  or  the 
scenery  of  country  life.  Where  he  draws  his  illustrations 
from  the  country  and  from  agriculture,  he  chiefly  "  deals  with 
human  labour  and  its  useful  results  ".  There  are,  of  course, 
some  isolated  exceptions,  as  when  he  spoke  to  the  unedu- 
cated rustic  mob  of  Lystra,  a  small  town  dependent  on 
agriculture  and  pasturage,  not  on  commerce  and  exchange, 
about  the  "  rain  from  heaven  and  fruitful  seasons  ". 

Yet  the  idea  of  fruit  which  occurs  in  this  Lystran  address 
is  peculiarly  characteristic  of  Paul.  The  idea  of  develop- 
ment, of  growth  culminating  in  fruit,  a  process  leading  to  an 
end  in  riches  and  usefulness — this  always  appeals  strongly 
to  him.  It  occurs,  e.g.,  in  Philippians  i.  11,  22,  iv.  17; 
Galatians  v.  19-23;  Colossians  i.  6,  10;  Ephesians  v.  8,  9, 
II ;  Romans  i.  13,  vi.  21-23,  vii.  4,  5,  xv.  28  ;  2  Corinthians 
ix.  10;  Titus  iii.  14,  etc.  His  philosophy  rests  mainly  on 
this  idea  of  growth  and  development.  He  looks  on  the 
world  as  the  development  of  a  purpose ;  the  world  is  to  him 
always  fluid  and  changing,  never  stationary ;  but  the  change 
is  the  purpose  of  God,  working  itself  out  amid  the  errors  and 
the  wickedness,  the  deliberate  sin,  of  men.^ 

He  is  specially  fond  of  expressing  this  idea  of  the  Divine 
power  making  and  moulding  the  mind  of  man  through  a 

^See  Rev.  Griffith  Thomas  in  Expository  Timts,  1906,  p.  211 ;  Sanday  and 
Headlam  on  Romans  iv.  3. 

'^  See  Cities  of  St.  Paul,  Pt.  I.,  §  II.,  where  this  idea  was  worked  out  sub- 
sequently in  a  fuller  way. 


288  X.  S^.  Paul's 

metaphor  taken  from  the  stadium.  The  person  in  whom 
the  purpose  of  God  works,  redeeming  him  from  his  sin  and 
setting  him  in  the  Divine  path,  fulfils  the  course  marked  out 
for  him  and  runs  the  proper  race.  He  uses  this  figure  very 
often — about  the  word  of  the  Lord  (2  Thess.  iii.  i ;  compare 
Heb.  xii,  i);  about  John  the  Baptist  (Acts  xiii.  25);  about 
himself  (Acts  XX.  24,  2  Tim.  iv.  7,  Phil.  ii.  16,  Gal.  ii.  2); 
and  in  a  general  way,  Romans  ix.  16  ;  2  Corinthians  ix.  24, 
26 ;  Galatians  v.  7,  etc.  This  figure  of  the  runner  in  the  foot- 
race is  peculiar  in  the  New  Testament  to  him  and  the  writer 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  (who  was  certainly  a  Hellen- 
istic Jew).  A  strait  and  narrow  Hebrew,  hating  all  things 
Greek  and  Western,  could  never  have  compared  the  Divine 
life  to  the  course  in  the  stadium :  still  less  could  he  have 
done  this  so  persistently  as  to  show  that  the  thought  lay  in 
the  very  fabric  of  his  mind  (see  Note,  p.  298), 

Again,  the  general  terms  connected  with  the  athletic 
ground  are  frequent  in  Paul,  and  in  him  alone  in  the  New 
Testament.  These  terms  (derived  from  aycov  and  ddXeeo) 
might  refer  to  any  common  athletic  sport,  but  are  probably 
to  be  generally  understood  of  the  race-course :  ^  sometimes 
the  context  makes  this  certain. 

In  2  Timothy  iv.  7-8,  "  I  have  fought  the  good  fight " 
is  not  a  military,  but  an  athletic  metaphor :  "  I  have  played 
a  good  game "  is  the  correspondent  in  modern  slang.  The 
whole  sentence  is  literally,  "  I  have  competed  in  the  honour- 
able contest,  I  have  run  the  race  to  the  finish,  ^  I  have  ob- 
served (the  rules  of)  the  faith  ".  Similarly  in  i  Timothy  vi. 
1 2,  there  is  no  reference  to  fighting  (as  the  Authorised  and 

^  There  is  one  exception  :  see  following  page. 

*  rhv  Ka\hy  aywya  Ttydvia/xai  •  rhv  SpSfnov  rerfKfKa  ■  rijv  iriffTiv  T€T^pjjKa,  where 
the  last  three  words  mean,  "  I  have  observed  the  rules  which  are  laid  down 
for  this  race-course  of  faith."     (See  p.  290.) 


Greek  and  Roman  Metaphors  2  89 

Revised  Versions  have  it)  ;  but  the  instructions  to  Timothy 
are.  "  Compete  in  the  honourable  contest  of  faith,"  ^  a  more 
compressed  expression  of  the  same  comparison  as  in  2 
Timothy  iv.  7. 

The  race  in  this  honourable  contest  is  described  most 
fully  in  Philippians  iii.  12-14,  "  It  is  not  as  if  I  had  already  got 
the  prize  or  finished  the  race,  but  I  am  rushing  on  hard,  to  see 
if  I  may  seize  that  for  which  I  was  actually  seized  by  Christ ; 
brethren,  I  do  not  count  myself  yet  to  have  seized  (the  prize) ; 
but  this  on  thing  only,  forgetting  everything  that  lies  behind, 
and  straining  forward  to  what  is  in  front,  I  rush  on  with  the 
goal  in  my  view  so  as  to  reach  the  prize  "  ;  and  the  prize  is 
defined  by  the  following  words,  "  of  the  summons  on  high  of 
God  in  Christ  Jesus  ".  The  metaphor  is  concealed  in  several 
other  cases  in  the  English  Version  under  the  term  "  conten- 
tion" (i  Thess.  ii.  2)  or  ''striving"  (Col.  iv.  12). 

In  this  respect  we  must  class  with  him  the  other  great 
Hellenist  of  the  New  Testament,  the  writer  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  who  uses  the  word  aOXTjaa  (see  p.  291). 
Some  of  the  latter's  metaphors  seem  almost  to  depend  for 
intelligibility  on  the  familiarity  of  the  readers  with  Paul's 
metaphors  from  athletics.  As  this  writer  was  addressing  Jews,'^ 
he  cannot  have  depended  on  his  readers'  familiarity  with 
games.  He  used  the  metaphors  because  they  rose  naturally 
to  his  mind. 

It  was  chiefly  the  race-course  that  furnished  St.  Paul 
with  these  metaphors ;  but  the  boxing  contest  also  suggested 
itself  to  his  mind  in  one  case  at  least.  "  I  so  box  as  one 
that  does  not  beat  the  air "  (with  his  fists :  i  Cor.  ix.  26) : 
my  effort  is  really  effective. 

1  aywvi^ov  rhy  KoXhy  ayuva  ttjs  Trlffrevs. 

2 1  assume  here  the  point  touched  on  in  the  following  paper. 
19 


290  X.  SL  Paul's 

The  prize  in  the  foot-race  and  other  athletic  contests  was 
the  crown  ;  and  the  person  who  thinks  of  the  Divine  life  as 
a  race  towards  a  goal  must  think  of  the  culmination  of  the 
Divine  life  as  the  gaining  of  the  victor's  garland.  But  there 
are  two  important  differences:  (i)  in  the  games  only  one 
can  obtain  the  prize,  whereas  every  runner  in  the  Divine  race 
of  life  may  gain  it ;  (2)  the  crown  in  the  one  case  is  an  eva- 
nescent garland,  which  soon  withers,  whereas  in  the  other  it 
is  permanent  and  unfading  (i  Cor.  ix.  24-27). 

The  analogy  which  Paul  has  in  his  thought  is  not  confined 
to  the  eagerness  of  spirit  and  concentration  of  purpose  and 
to  the  prize  which  is  aimed  at.  The  athletic  competitor 
must  live  a  life  of  training  and  strict  discipline  before  the 
actual  competition  begins.  So  for  the  Divine  race,  "  I  keep 
my  body  under  and  bring  it  into  subjection,"  to  avoid  the 
danger  of  being  led  away  and  shipwrecked  by  passion  and 
self-indulgence.  This  training  was  guided  by  certain  rules 
and  instructions. 

The  athlete  must  "strive  lawfully"  and  observe  all  the 
rules  laid  down  by  the  trainers  and  the  guardians  of  the 
course,  not  merely  for  conduct  in  the  course,  but  also  during 
the  preparation  for  it  (2  Tim.  ii.  5) ;  and  similarly  in  the 
Christian  life  it  is  Faith,  like  the  arbiter,  who  lays  down  the 
laws  of  the  competition  (2  Tim.  iv.  8  :  p.  288,  note  2). 

The  metaphors  of  this  class  are  confined  almost  exclu- 
sively to  St.  Paul  in  the  whole  range  of  the  Bible,  and  with 
him  they  are  extremely  frequent.  The  Paulinistic  author 
of  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews  is  almost  the  only  other  writer 
who  uses  such  figures,  and  with  him  they  are  only  few. 
The  author  of  Revelation  ii.  10  is  hardly  an  exception : 
"  The  crown  of  life,"  which  in  that  passage  is  the  reward  of 
the  victor,  is  in  a  sense  the   garland  of  victory ;    but  the 


Greek  and  Roman  Metaphors  291 

crown  was  suggested  to  the  writer's  mind  rather  by  "  the 
crown  of  Smyrna  "  than  by  the  garland  of  the  games  ;  ^  and 
the  idea  of  victory  which  so  often  occurs  in  the  Seven  Letters 
seems  hardly  to  be  consciously  connected  in  the  writer's 
thought  with  the  games,  but  rather  with  war.  The  crown 
was  not  peculiar  to  the  Greeks  nor  was  it  restricted  among 
them  to  athletic  contests ;  and,  before  assuming  the  connec- 
tion, in  any  case,  it  is  necessary  to  prove  that  the  idea  of 
athletics  lies  in  the  passage  as  a  whole.  That  is  not  the 
case  in  any  of  the  non-Pauline  passages  where  the  crown  is 
mentioned,  except  in  Hebrews. 

St.  Paul  stands  alone  in  this  respect;  and  his  language 
came  to  him  because  of  his  early  training.  It  is  quite  im- 
possible to  suppose  that  a  method  of  illustration  which  is  so 
frequent  and  characteristic  was  deliberately  chosen,  contrary 
to  the  Apostle's  nature  and  convictions,  in  order  to  suit 
his  readers  in  Gentile  Churches.  The  Hellenist  who  wrote 
to  the  Hebrews  used  metaphors  of  this  class  once  or  twice 
in  spite  of  the  prejudice  of  his  readers  against  those  pagan 
habits.     See  final  note,  p.  298. 

St.  Paul  was  free  from  the  prejudice;  he  found  that 
the  keenness  and  enthusiastic,  passionate  attention,  which 
were  lavished  on  athletic  contests  in  the  world  where  he 
had  been  brought  up,  furnished  the  best  illustration  for 
the  spirit  in  which  the  Divine  life  must  be  lived.  He  could 
not  have  appreciated  this  fact  unless  he  had  been  brought 
up  amid  those  surroundings  and  had  experienced  the  strength 
of  those  feelings.  If  he  had  been  educated  in  the  same  way 
as  the  narrow  strait-laced  Jews,  to  whom  such  things  were 
an  abomination,  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  he  could 
have  used  these  comparisons. 

1  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  p,  275. 


292  X.  5/.  Paul's 

The  frequency  of  these  gymnastic  metaphors,  with  the 
depth  of  feeling  shown  in  them,  is  a  striking  fact.  They 
show  real  understanding  of  the  intensity  of  feeling  that  the 
competition  rouses  in  the  athlete.  It  is  only  in  youth,  and 
especially  in  boyhood,  that  this  can  be  learned.'  A  Jew 
brought  up  in  Palestine  to  abhor  such  sports,  which  were 
conducted  by  Gentiles  in  the  Greek  fashion  of  nudity, 
could  never  come  to  understand  this  intense  feeling,  if  he 
merely  saw  the  games  in  later  life  while  living  as  a  preacher 
in  Greek  cities,  Paul  had  been  educated  in  a  Hellenic  city 
where  he  had  seen  for  himself  that  athletic  sports  are  not 
wrong  or  abominable  ;  ^  he  had  understood  sympathetically 
the  feeling  of  the  competitors ;  he  knew  that  this  feeling 
contained  an  element  of  nobleness  and  self-sacrifice,  and  he 
utilised  it  to  express  the  intensity  of  the  religious  life.  There 
certainly  was  no  idea  in  his  mind  that  such  comparisons  de- 
graded religion.  The  narrow  Jew  could  not  free  himself 
from  that  idea ;  but  it  evidently  had  no  place  in  Paul's  mind, 
which  had  been  formed  in  other  surroundings  than  those  of 
Palestine.  He  sympathised  with  the  Gentile  ;  he  had  learned 
from  the  Gentile ;  he  was  a  debtor  to  the  Gentile.^ 

We  must  infer  that  this  department  of  Paul's  vocabulary 
and  thought  originated  in  his  early  experiences  as  a  child, 
brought  up  amid  the  surroundings  of  a  Hellenistic  city  and 
familiarised  with  the  conduct  of  the  race-course.     The  spirit 

1  The  Jews  of  Jerusalem  had  begun  to  learn  this  fact  early  in  the  second 
century  B.C. ;  and  the  building  of  a  gymnasium  (to  which  the  priests  hastened 
after  service  in  the  Temple),  with  the  spread  of  Greek  fashions  and  increase 
of  heathenish  manners  in  Jerusalem  (especially  the  wearing  of  hats  by  the 
young  men) — which  were  not  forced  on  the  people  by  the  tyrant  Antiochus 
(as  modern  writers  often  assume),  but  suggested  to  him  by  the  "  progressive  " 
party  among  the  Jews  themselves — are  mentioned  as  having  provoked  the 
Maccabaean  rebellion  (2  Macc.iv.  12-14). 

*  Compare  Rom.  i.  14. 


Greek  and  Roman  Metaphors  293 

of  the  competitor*  in  the  course  was,  on  the  whole,  one  of 
the  best  and  healthiest  facts  of  Greek  city  life.  Paul  had 
learned  this  from  participating  in  the  life  of  a  Hellenic  city 
as  a  boy ;  there  is  no  other  way  in  which  the  lesson  can  be 
learned  so  thoroughly  as  to  sink  into  the  man's  nature  and 
guide  his  thought  and  language  as  this  topic  guides  Paul's. 

When  Ignatius  compares  the  Christian  life  to  a  religious 
procession,  with  a  long  train  of  rejoicing  devotees  clad  in  the 
appropriate  garments,  bearing  their  religious  symbols  and 
holy  things  through  the  public  streets,  we  see  that  he  was  at 
times  ruled  insensibly  by  old  ideas  and  scenes  familiar  to  him 
in  earlier  life.  As  a  general  rule,  he  regarded  his  old  pagan 
life  with  shame  as  a  cause  of  humiliation ;  yet  thoughts  and 
associations  connected  with  it  directed  his  mind  and  his  ex- 
pression. No  Jew  brought  up  from  the  beginning  to  regard 
pagan  ceremonial  as  simply  hateful  could  have  used  the 
comparison. 

Just  as  the  experience  of  Ignatius  in  the  P^an  Mysteries, 
and  his  understanding  of  the  intense  religious  feeling  which 
they  roused  in  their  votaries,  coloured  and  formed  his  lan- 
guage in  describing  the  deepest  and  most  mystic  elements 
in  the  Christian  faith,  ^  so  Paul's  language  was  coloured  and 
formed  by  his  experience  in  Tarsus.  A  man  whose  mind 
was  thus  moulded  could  not  long  have  remained  in  sympathy 
with  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem.  A  common  hatred  for  Him 
whom  they  thought  an  impostor  united  them  all  for  a  time 
to  resist  the  religion  of  Christ.  But  his  nature  had  been 
formed  in  a  freer  fashion  than  the  Palestinian,  and  he  soon 
burst  their  narrow  bonds.  His  nature  drove  and  goaded 
him  on  into  a  wider  field,  and  he  found  it  hard  to  '*  kick 
against  the  goads  ". 

^  Letters  to  the  Seven  Churches,  ch.  xiii. 


294  X.  SL  PauVs 

It  would  be  useful  to  compare  the  Pauline  metaphors  with 
the  language  of  Philo,  who  was  born  and  brought  up  in  the 
Hellenic  city  of  Alexandria.  In  him  also  illustrations  taken 
from  the  stadium  and  the  palaestra  are  very  frequent,  though 
they  are  (I  think)  more  common  in  the  form  of  similes  than 
of  metaphors,  and  are  therefore  not  so  wrought  into  the 
fabric  of  the  thought  as  is  the  case  with  Paul's  metaphorical 
language. 

But  it  is  easy  to  carry  this  method  to  an  extreme  which 
lands  it  in  absurdity.  Dean  Howson,  in  his  Metaphors  of 
St.  Paul,  the  last  chapter  of  which  we  praised  and  freely  used 
in  the  preceding  pages,  devotes  two  chapters  to  the  military 
metaphors  and  the  architectural  metaphors  in  the  Apostle's 
letters.  If  his  estimate  of  these  is  as  reasonable  as  we  con- 
sider his  account  of  the  athletic  metaphors  to  be,  then,  by 
the  same  train  of  argument,  Paul  must  have  been  as  familiar 
with  and  interested  in  Roman  military  methods  and  Greek 
architectural  details  as  with  the  spirit  and  eagerness  of  the 
victorious  athlete  ;  which  is  ab.  urd. 

But,  when  you  look  at  the  military  and  architectural  meta- 
phors, there  is  hardly  one  which  is  not  of  a  quite  vague  and 
general  kind.  Wherever  Dean  Howson  finds  the  word 
"  fight "  or  "  build,"  he  detects  an  allusion  to  a  Roman  army 
or  a  Greek  temple.  But  there  were  soldiers  before  Rome 
was  heard  of,  and  houses  were  built  before  the  form  of  the 
Greek  temple  had  been  evolved.  The  most  pacific  and  un- 
military  of  mortals  will  often  use  the  word  "  fight ".  Persons 
absolutely  ignorant  of  the  shape  of  a  Greek  temple  may 
habitually  use  the  word  "build".  Even  Hellenes  were  not 
always  thinking  of  a  temple  when  they  employed  that  meta- 
phor. 

These  and  many  similar  words  have  passed  into  the  uni- 


Greek  and  Roman  Metaphors  295 

versal  language  of  mankind,  and  are  constantly  used  without 
any  distinct  thought  of  the  original  department  of  life  from 
which  they  are  adopted.  They  are  not  peculiar  to  St.  Paul 
in  the  New  Testament.  The  verb  "  to  build  "  occurs  there 
thirty-one  times  outside  of  his  writings  and  ten  times  in 
them:  the  word  "builder"  once  outside,  while  he  never  uses 
\t>  The  noun  "building"  is  not  so  unfavourable  to  the 
Dean's  view:  it  is  found  four  times  outside  the  Pauline 
letters,  and  fifteen  times  in  them ;  moreover  Paul  shows  a 
marked  tendency  to  employ  the  word  in  the  moral  sphere 
to  describe  the  building  up  of  character  and  holiness.  But 
this  peculiarity  is  not  favourable  to  the  supposition  of  archi- 
tectural experience  and  training,  for  in  comparison  with 
other  writers  in  the  New  Testament  he  displays  less  familiar- 
ity with  the  original  process,  and  inclines  to  use  the  word 
only  in  the  transferred  sense,  which  implies  that  he  was  not 
consciously  thinking  of  the  metaphor,  nor  making  the  meta- 
phor for  the  first  time,  but  was  adopting  a  previously  exist- 
ing mode  of  expressing  the  moral  fact — a  mode  which  had 
been  long  familiar  to  him. 

It  is  different  in  the  case  of  the  athletic  metaphors.  In 
many  of  them  it  is  quite  clear  from  the  passage  that  Paul 
was  consciously  and  deliberately  using  the  metaphor  as 
such ;  and  it  is  highly  probable  that  he  was  the  first  to  strike 
out  this  Christian  use  of  the  words.  The  Greek  language  of 
Christian  theology  was  created  by  him,  and  never  wholly 
lost  the  character  he  had  impressed  on  it :  so  Tertullian  was 
mainly  influential  in  devising  a  Latin  expression  for  the 
Greek  Christian  theology. 

The  whole  of  Dean  Howson's  discussion  of  architectural 

'  The  statistics  refer  to  the  Greek  words  olKo56fios  and  otVoSo/ue'w*  He  uses 
once  the  word  opxtTfKTwtf,  which  is  rendered  "  builder  "  (i  Cor.  iii.  lo). 


296  X.  St  Paul's 

Pauline  metaphors  comes  to  practically  nothing,  so  far  as 
concerns  his  thesis  that  the  Apostle  was  thinking  in  them  of 
the  classical  Greek  temple.  In  so  far  as  Paul  was  conscious 
of  his  architectural  metaphors — and  in  some  places  he  was 
clearly  conscious — he  was  generally  thinking  rather  of  the 
house  than  of  the  temple.  It  is  a  necessary  rule  in  estimat- 
ing the  nature  of  metaphor  that  it  must  be  presumed  (apart 
from  any  special  reason)  to  be  drawn  from  the  realm  that  is 
most  familiar  to  the  writer.  Now  Paul  was  certainly  quite 
familiar  with  the  process  of  building  a  house ;  but  he  may 
never  actually  have  seen  a  Greek  temple  in  building.  Yet 
Dean  Howson  is  convinced  that  it  was  the  classical  temple, 
resting  on  columns  and  splendidly  decorated,  that  floated 
always  before  Paul's  mind  and  determined  his  expression. 

The  degree  to  which  the  Dean  presses  his  statistics  is 
shown  by  the  following :  on  page  47  he  says  that  the  verb 
"  edify  "  and  its  substantive  "  edification  "  occur  about  twenty 
times  in  the  New  Testament,  and  are  with  one  exception 
used  by  St.  Paul  alone,  and  the  one  exception  is  in  Acts,  a 
book  "  written  almost  certainly  under  his  superintendence  ". 
The  passage  of  Acts  is  ix.  31,  and  it  is  straining  facts  to  rely 
op  this  as  an  example  of  Pauline  influence.  Moreover,  the 
very  words  "  being  edified  and  walking  in  the  fear  of  the 
Lord,"  prove  that  the  writer  had  no  sense  of  the  original 
realm  from  which  the  metaphor  was  derived,  but  was  using 
a  word  which  had  passed  into  the  language  of  Christian 
moral  philosophy  (quite  possibly  and  even  probably  through 
the  influence  of  Paul,  who  in  his  turn  used  it  rather  philoso- 
phically than  with  conscious  metaphor).  Such  statistics 
from  the  English  Version  are  misleading.  We  have  stated 
the  facts  regarding  the  Greek  words  for  building,  and  they 
are  not  favourable  to  the  Dean's  view. 


Greek  and  Roman  Metaphors  297 

Throughout  the  mihtary  metaphors,  some  of  which  are 
clearly  conscious  and  intended,  there  are  none  which  even 
in  the  slightest  degree  suggest  any  real  interest  in  or  fami- 
liarity with  military  matters ;  they  are  all  quite  popular ;  and 
there  are  only  two  which  are  certainly  Roman  in  character. 
All  the  rest  are  simply  military  in  general ;  they  are  not 
Roman  any  more  than  they  are  Greek :  they  relate  to  the 
popular  conception  of  the  soldier  in  genere.  Even  the 
allusion  in  2  Tim.  ii.  3,  4,  which  probably  implies  a  profes- 
sional soldier,  who  "does  not  entangle  himself  with  the 
common  affairs  of  life,"  would  be  quite  well  satisfied  by  the 
mercenaries  who  were  a  common  feature  of  the  later  Greek 
or  Graeco-Asiatic  kingdoms  and  armies. 

The  two  indubitably  Roman  military  metaphors  are  the 
two  striking  allusions  to  the  triumph,  which  are  resonant  of 
the  dignity  and  majesty  of  Rome. 

The  first  is  in  Colossians  ii.  15  (14) :  "the  bond  (consisting 
in  ordinances)  which  was  opposed  to  us  he  hath  taken  out 
of  the  way,  nailing  it  to  the  cross:  (15)  having  stripped  off 
from  himself  the  principalities  and  the  powers,  he  made  a 
show  of  them  openly,  celebrating  a  triumph  over  them  in 
his  crucifixion  ". 

The  other  passage  is  a  more  detailed  picture  of  the  long 
train  of  the  Roman  triumph,  with  incense  and  spices  perfum- 
ing the  streets,  when  the  chiefs  of  the  defeated  people  were 
taken  into  the  Mamertine  prison  on  the  side  of  the  Capitol 
and  there  strangled,  as  the  procession  was  ascending  the 
slope  of  the  Capitoline  hill,  "Thanks  be  to  God,  who 
always  leads  us  (His  soldiers)  in  the  train  of  His  triumph,^ 

^  Lightfoot  on  Col.  ii.  14  seems  to  take  this  in  the  sense  "  celebrates  his 
triumph  over  us  as  his  conquered  foes".  I  think  the  meaning  taken  above 
is  better ;  "we  were  the  soldiers  who  march  behind  him  in  his  triumph,"  as 
the  soldiers  of  the  victorious  army  always  did. 


298     X.  St.  Paul's  Greek  and  Roman  Metaphors 

and  makes  manifest  through  us  the  fragrance  of  His  know- 
ledge in  every  place :  for  we  are  a  fragrance  of  Christ  unto 
God,  in  them  that  are  being  saved  and  in  them  that  are 
perishing." 

In  these  passages  speaks  the  Roman  ;  and  they  are  the 
only  two  passages  in  all  the  letters  of  Paul  in  which  I  fancy 
that  one  can  catch  the  tone  of  the  Roman  citizen.  Nothing 
is  sufficient  to  express  the  completeness  and  absoluteness  of 
the  Divine  victory  except  a  Roman  triumph.  How  different 
is  this  from  the  way  in  which  the  writer  of  the  Apocalypse 
strives  to  find  expression  for  the  same  idea. 

There  is  in  these  two  Pauline  passages  a  striking  analogy 
to  the  passage  just  cited  from  Ignatius,  who  found  nothing 
so  suited  to  describe  the  Christian  life  as  a  religious  proces- 
sion through  the  streets  of  a  city.  As  in  the  one  passage 
you  recognise  the  pagan  and  probably  the  priest,  so  in  the 
other  you  recognise  the  Roman  citizen.  It  would  be  a 
perfectly  legitimate  inference  to  deduce  from  these  passages 
that  Paul  was  a  Roman  ;  but,  had  he  himself  not  mentioned 
his  standing  in  the  Empire,  the  inference  would  have  been 
derided  by  the  critics  as  fanciful  and  incredible. 

Note  to  p.  288,  1.  15. — Now  the  full  force  of  this  obser- 
vation is  apparent  only  when  we  take  into  account  that  this 
question  had  been  raised  for  a  long  time  back  in  Jewish 
circles,  and  that  opinion  on  the  subject  differed  sharply.  It 
was  almost  a  mark  of  the  broader  Jewish  thought  to  regard 
athletics  without  reprobation.  It  was  a  characteristic  of  the 
narrower  Jewish  patriotic  party,  which  abhorred  foreign 
ways,  to  abominate  and  reprobate  the  sports  of  the  palaestra 
or  the  stadium  :  see  p.  292,  note  i. 


XI. 

THE  DATE  AND  AUTHORSHIP  OF  THE 
EPISTLE  TO  THE  HEBREWS. 


XI. 

THE  DATE  AND  AUTHORSHIP  OF  THE 
EPISTLE  TO  THE  HEBREWS. 

The  problem  treated  in  the  present  paper  is  not  soluble  in 
the  sense  of  demonstrating  absolutely  that  one  view  is  true 
and  all  other  views  are  false.  There  is  too  little  available 
evidence,  internal  or  external. 

But  there  is  a  strong  probability — almost  amounting  to 
certainty — that  the  true  view  will  be  found  to  be  widely 
illuminative,  will  make  clear  much  that  is  obscure,  and  will 
show  the  Epistle  not  merely  as  a  marvellous  picture  of  "  the 
spiritual  character  of  the  readers,"  ^  but  also  as  an  important 
passage  in  the  history  of  the  first  century. 

Tried  by  this  test,  all  the  common  theories  of  date  and 
manner  of  origin  fail.  The  Barnabas  theory,  the  Apollos 
theory,  throw  light  on  nothing,  not  even  on  the  Epistle 
itself  A  date  under  Domitian,  a  date  about  A.D.  64-66,^ 
make  the  document  more  enigmatical  and  isolated  than  it 
is  when  one  has  no  theory  on  the  subject. 

It  is  not  a  matter  of  mere  idle  curiosity  to  reason  as  to  the 
time  and  place  at  which  the  Epistle  was  written.  It  is  true 
that  the  work  is  independent  of  those  external  circumstances, 
and  can  be  understood  and  valued  as  a  great  book  without 

^Westcott  on  Hebrews,  p.  xli. 

^The  latter  view  formerly  commended  itself  to  me  (Church  in  Rom.  Emp.,. 
p.  307).     Longer  study  shows  it  to  be  untenable. 

(301) 


302  XI.    The  Date  and  Authorship  of 

a  thought  about  them.  But  the  history  of  the  Apostolic 
Age  is  a  subject  of  serious  importance  ;  and  while  that  great 
blank  remains  in  it,  while  the  doubt  continues  as  to  whether 
the  work  belongs  to  Domitian's  or  Nero's  time,  whether  it 
was  addressed  to  a  Jewish  or  Gentile  Church,  there  must  be 
a  doubt  as  to  the  security  of  the  foundations  upon  which 
the  history  rests.  So  closely  related  to  one  another  are  all 
the  other  phenomena  of  early  Christianity,  that,  while  this 
wonderful  book  stands  apart  in  such  isolation,  we  cannot 
(or  ought  not  to)  feel  the  same  confidence  in  our  conception 
of  the  rest  of  the  history. 

The  historical  questions  relating  to  the  date  and  circum- 
stances of  the  composition  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
have  been  brought  nearer  to  an  answer  in  a  series  of  note- 
worthy papers  by  the  Rev.  W.  M.  Lewis.  While  in  some 
respects  the  view  stated  in  the  following  remarks  differs 
from  that  advocated  by  Mr.  Lewis,  it  agrees  with  his  theory 
as  regards  all  the  main  circumstances  of  the  time  and  place 
and  (to  a  considerable  extent)  the  manner  of  composition  of 
the  Epistle ;  and  it  would  certainly  not  have  been  attained 
so  soon,  possibly  not  at  all,  had  I  not  been  guided  and  stimu- 
lated by  his  earlier  series  of  papers.^  While  writing  the 
present  article,  I  have  also  had  before  me  his  more  recent 
articles,^  which  only  confirm  my  general  agreement  with, 
and  my  occasional  dissent  from,  his  opinion. 

It  will  also  be  clear  to  any  reader  how  much  the  writer 
has  been  indebted  to  Westcott's  great  edition  of  the  Epistle. 
Very  often  the  turn  of  a  sentence  or  the  expression  of  an 
opinion  is  borrowed  from  him,  with  only  the  slight  modifica- 
tion that  a  great  man's  words  always  require  when  they  are 

1  In  the  Thinker,  Oct  and  Nov.,  1893. 

"In  the  Biblical  World,  Aug.,  1898,  April,  1899. 


the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  303 

seized  and  thought  anew  by  even  a  humble  disciple.  I  have 
also  made  frequent  use  of  the  Rev.  G.  Milligan's  judicious 
and  scholarly  book  ;  *  but  he  is  farther  removed  than  the 
Bishop  of  Durham  from  the  opinion  which  I  hold.  Their 
arguments  are  tested  against  those  of  Professor  McGififert,  as 
the  best  representative  of  the  opposed  point  of  view. 

Deliberately  and  intentionally,  here  and  elsewhere,  I  use 
the  words  of  others  as  much  as  possible,  and  preferably  of 
those  who  do  not  hold  the  opinion  which  I  advocate.  This 
procedure  is  the  best  preventive  against  overstatement  of  the 
reasons  on  which  my  opinion  is  founded. 

The  theory  advanced  by  Mr.  Lewis  is  that  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews  was  written  from  Caesarea  during  Paul's  im- 
prisonment in  the  palace  of  Herod  (Acts  xxiii.  35).^  He 
considers  that  Luke,  in  a  series  of  interviews  (Acts  xxiv.  23), 
was  instructed  as  to  Paul's  views,  and  directed  to  embody 
these  in  the  form  of  a  letter.  The  part  of  the  theory  which 
takes  Luke  for  the  author  of  the  Epistle  can  hardly  be  ac- 
cepted. But  as  regards  the  important  matters  of  the  place 
and  time  and  situation  in  which  the  letter  originated,  this 
theory  seems  to  be  remarkably  illuminative,  and  therefore 
probably  true. 

The  intention  of  the  following  remarks  is  not  to  recapitu- 
late Mr.  Lewis's  arguments,  which  ought  to  be  studied  in 
his  own  statement ;  but  to  state  my  own  reasons  for  think- 
ing that  he  has  come  near  the  truth. 

Stated  briefly  and  dogmatically,  the  view  to  which  this 
paper  leads  up  is — 

1  Theology  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  1899. 

'Mr.  Lewis  usually  states  the  date  in  this  wide  way.  In  one  passage, 
however,  he  places  the  Epistle  at  the  end  of  the  imprisonment,  after  Festus 
had  succeeded  Felix.  That  seems  to  me  a  little  too  late,  and  inconsistent 
with  xiii.  23,  as  will  be  shown  in  the  sequel. 


304  XI.    The  Date  and  Authorship  of 

that  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  was  finished  in  the 
month  of  April  or  May,  A.D.  59,^  towards  the  end  of 
the  government  of  Felix  ; 

that  it  treats  certain  topics  which  had  been  frequently 
discussed  between  Paul  and  the  leading  men  of  the 
Church  at  Caesarea  during  his  imprisonment,  and  em- 
bodies the  general  impression  and  outcome  of  those 
discussions ; 

that  it  purported  to  be,  in  a  sense,  the  Epistle  of  the 
Church  in  Caesarea  to  the  Jewish  party  of  the  Church 
in  Jerusalem ;  this  implies  that  the  writer,  practically 
speaking,  was  Philip  the  Deacon  (Acts  xxi.  8) ; 
he  generally  speaks  as  representing  the  Caesarean 
Church,  using  the  first  person  plural,  but  occasionally 
he  employs  the  author's  first  person  singular,  "  I 
may  almost  say"  (ix.  22  plural  in  the  Greek),  "what 
shall  I  more  say  ? "  (xi.  32)  ; 

that  the  plan  of  composing  such  a  letter  had  been 
discussed  beforehand  with  Paul,  and  the  letter,  when 
written,  was  submitted  to  him,  and  the  last  few  verses 
were  actually  appended  by  him  ; 

that  its  intention  was  to  place  the  Jewish  readers  on 
a  new  plane  of  thought,  on  which  they  might  better 
comprehend  Paul's  views  and  work,  and  to  reconcile 
the  dispute  between  the  extreme  Judaic  party  and  the 
Pauline  party  in  the  Church,  not  by  arguing  for  or  ex- 
plaining Paul's  views,  but  by  leading  the  Judaists  into 
a  different  line  of  thought  which  would  conduct  them 
to  a  higher  point  of  view ; 

1  The  chronology  advocated  in  St.  Paul  the  Traveller  is  assumed  through- 
out ;  those  who  follow  another  system  can  readily  modify  the  dates  to 
suit. 


the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  305 

and  finally,  that  the  letter,  as  being  a  joint  production, 
which  was  addressed  to  a  mere  section  of  a  congregation, 
was  not  prefaced  by  the  usual  introductory  clause  of  al  1 
ordinary  letters,  "So-and-so  to  So-and-so":  presum- 
ably the  bearer  of  the  letter  would  explain  the  circum- 
stances. 

That  there  is  at  this  period  an  opening  for  a  letter  in 
which  Paul  was  interested  will  at  once  be  conceded.  That 
is  proved  by  the  fact  that  many  excellent  scholars  have 
placed,  and  some  still  place,  during  the  Caesarean  captivity 
three  letters  which  Lightfoot,  supported  by  the  almost 
universal  opinion  of  British  scholars,  places  in  the  Roman 
captivity.^ 

No  progress  is  possible  until  a  definite  and  unhesitating 
opinion  is  formed  whether  the  ancient  title  "  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews"  is  approximately  correct  or  wholly  erroneous, 
i.e.,  whether  the  letter  was  written  to  Jews  or  to  Gentiles. 
Some  recent  scholars  have  argued  that  the  letter  was 
written  "to  a  Church  or  group  of  Churches  whose  member- 
ship was  largely  Gentile,  where  the  Jews,  as  far  as  there 
were  any,  had  become  amalgamated  with  their-  Gentile 
brethren  so  that  all  race  distinctions  were  lost  sight  of".^ 
With  all  due  respect  to  the  distinguished  scholars  who 
have  argued  in  favour  of  that  view,  I  must  express  what 
I  think — that  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  an  opinion  so 
paradoxical,  so  obviously  opposed  to  the  whole  weight  of 
evidence,  so  entirely  founded  on  strained  misinterpretation 
of  a  few   passages   and   on    the   ignoring   of  the   general 

'  Harnack,  in  the  table  appended  to  his  Chronologic  der  altchr.  Literatur, 
p.  717,  gives  both  possibilities,  but  leans  to  the  Roman  date. 

2  McGiffert,  Apostolic  Age,  p.  468,  who  gives  a  clear  resume  of  the  argu- 
ments of  Pfleiderer,  Van  Soden,  etc.,  on  this  side. 

20 


J 


06  XI.    The  Date  and  Authorship  of 


character  of  the  document.  "The  argument  .  .  .  cannot 
be  treated  as  more  than  an  ingenious  paradox  by  any 
one  who  regards  the  general  teaching  of  the  Epistle  in 
connection  with  the  forms  of  thought  in  the  Apostolic 
Age."i 

For  example,  it  is  argued  that  Hebrews  ix.  14 — "  How 
much  more  shall  the  blood  of  Christ  cleanse  your  conscience 
from  dead  works  to  serve  the  living  God  ?  " — could  not  be 
addressed  to  Jewish  disciples,  but  only  to  persons  who  had 
been  heathen.  One  would  have  thought  that  "  dead  works  " 
was  precisely  what  the  Jew  as  Jew  trusted  to  for  salvation, 
and  that  Hebrews  vi.  i,  2 — "repentance  from  dead  works, 
and  faith  toward  God,  the  teaching  of  baptism,  and  the  lay- 
ing on  of  hands,  and  of  resurrection  of  the  dead  and  of  eternal 
judgment " — is  clearly  a  summary  of  the  first  steps  '^  made  by 
the  Jew  towards  Christianity,  and  a  most  improbable  and 
uncharacteristic  way  of  describing  the  first  steps  of  a  pagan 
towards  the  truth.  Obviously  there  is  an  irreconcilable 
difference  in  the  fundamental  ideas  about  history  and  early 
Christianity,  when  two  sets  of  scholars  can  look  at  words  like 
these  and  pronounce  such  diametrically  opposite  opinions  on 
them. 

Contrast  with  one  another  such  judgments  as  the  follow- 
ing:— 

There  is  no  trace  of  any  admixture  Not  simply  is  there  no  sign  that 
of  heathen  converts;  nor  does  the  the  author  was  addressing  Jewish 
letter  touch  on  any  of  the  topics  of  Christians  .  .  .  there  are  some  pas- 
heathen  controversy  (note  xiii.  9)  sages  which  make  it  evident  that  he 
(Westcott,  p.  xxxvi.).  was  addressing  Gentiles  (McGiffert, 

p.  467). 

'  Westcott,  p.  XXXV. 

'-'What  the  writer  calls  "  the  foundation  "  :  he  exhorts  his  readers  not  to 
confine  their  attention  to  this,  but  to  proceed  onwards  to  the  more  complete 
knowledge  of  what  Christianity  is. 


the  E pis  lie  to  the  Hebrews 


o'^/ 


The  widening  breach  between  the         Nothing   whatever    is    said   about 

Church  and  the  Synagogue  rendered  apostasy  to  Judaism,  .  .  .  There   is 

it  necessary  at  last  to  make  choice  no   sign    that   the   author   thinits   of 

between  them,  and  "  the  Hebrews  "  such  apostasy  as  due  to  the  influence 

were  in  danger  of  apostasy :  ii.  1,3;  of  Judaism,  or  as  connected  with   it 

iii.  6,  12  ff. ;  iv.  i,  3,  n  ;  vi.  6;  x.  25,  in  any  way  (McGiffert,  p.  466  f.). 
29.  39  (Westcott,  loc.  cit). 

To  put  the  matter  in  brief,  i^fleiderer  and  his  supporters 
neglect  the  obvious  fact  that  the  Epistle  is  addressed  to  per- 
sons who  believed  in  the  Jewish  Scriptures,  and  were  half- 
hearted in  proceeding  therefrom  to  Christianity ;  whereas 
Gentile  Christians  were  persons  who  accepted  the  author- 
ity of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures  because  they  first  had 
become  Christians.  ''  The  Old  Testament  belonged  to 
the  Gentile  as  truly  as  to  the  Jewish  wing  of  the  Church, 
and  an  argument  drawn  from  it  had  just  as  much  weight 
with  the  former  as  with  the  latter."  ^  That  is  perfectly  true  ; 
but  how  different  is  the  spirit  in  which  the  Old  Testament 
is  appealed  to  in  the  two  cases.  In  addressing  a  Jew  the 
preacher  began  his  first  approach  by  showing  that  the  Old 
Testament  pointed  him  forward  to  Christ.  In  addressing  a 
pagan  audience  the  preacher  would  complete  the  last  steps 
in  his  approach  by  appealing  to  that  prophetic  preparation 
for  Christ.  Dr.  McGiffert  compares  Hebrews  with  Clement, 
and  finds  that  the  latter  *'  makes  even  larger  use  of"  the  Old 
Testament  than  the  former.  But  how  different  is  the 
manner !     We  also  rest  our  case  on  the  same  comparison. 

But  it  is  not  the  intention  of  this  paper  to  argue  that 
point.  Those  who  agree  with  Pfleiderer  will  not  care  to 
read  any  further,  as  we  look  from  incompatible  points  of  his- 
torical view.  They  may  be  referred  to  the  arguments  of 
Westcott  and  Milligan  ;  and  if  they  do  not  listen  to  those 
scholars,  they  would  not  listen  to  me. 
'  McGififert,  p.  46  f. 


3o8  XI.    The  Date  and  Authorship  of 

But  one  more  specimen  of  the  arguments  that  are  used 
to  prove  that  the  Epistle  could  not  have  been  addressed 
to  the  Jews  of  Palestine,  and  specially  of  Jerusalem,  must  be 
given,  because  important  inferences  depend  on  it :  "  The  re- 
ference to  the  great  generosity  of  those  addressed,  and  to 
their  continued  ministrations  to  the  necessities  of  the  saints, 
does  not  accord  with  what  we  know  of  the  long-continued 
poverty  of  the  Church  of  Jerusalem".^  When  reduced  to  a 
syllogism,  this  argument  may  be  thus  stated : — 

No  poor  man  can  be  generous. 

The  members  of  the  Church  at  Jerusalem  were  poor. 

They  therefore  were  not  generous. 

If  the  major  premise  is  correct,  the  syllogism  is  perfect. 
But  who  will  accept  the  major  premise,  when  it  is  put  plainly 
before  him  ? 

The  argument  is  a  glaring  fallacy,  and  a  libel  on  human 
nature. 

Moreover,  the  Greek  wlord  which  is  rendered  "  generosity  " 
is  a^dirr).  Surely  the  writers  who  employ  that  argument 
were  writing,  not  with  the  eye  on  the  Greek  text,  but  with 
a  modern  commentator  before  them.  Surely,  not  even 
Pfleiderer  himself,  who  of  all  moderns  is  the  least  trammelled 
by  the  actual  facts  of  nature  and  of  history,  would  knowingly 
and  intentionally  assert  that  a  poor  Church  cannot  show 
love  {ayaTrr}). 

Let  any  one  who  is  interested  in  probing  the  matter  travel 
in  the  East  for  some  months  or  years,  and  travel  not  as  a 
Cook's  tourist,  with  tents,  and  beds,  and  cooks,  and  stores  of 
food,  and  "  a'  the  comforts  o'  the  Sautmarket"  (which  Baillie 
Nicol  Jarvie  could  not  take  with  him  into  the  Highlands), 
but  live  in  dependence  on  the  inhabitants,  and  come  inta 

'  McGJflert,  p.  464.     Heb.  vi.  10. 


the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  309 

actual  relations  with  them.  He  will  learn  how  true  it  is  that 
generosity  and  hospitality  may  be  practised  by  very  poor 
people  even  towards  travellers  with  plenty  of  money,  and 
may  be  lacking  in  the  rich. 

Or,  if  he  cannot  travel  in  the  East,  he  may  learn  at  home, 
provided  that  he  does  not  keep  himself  shut  up  in  his  study^ 
but  comes  close  to  real  life,  to  appreciate  Matthew  Arnold's 
sonnet  about  the  tramp  who  begged  only  from  labouring 
men,  because 

She  will  not  ask  of  aliens,  but  of  friends, 

Of  sharers  in  a  common  human  fate. 
She  turns  from  that  cold  succour,  which  attends 

The  unknown  little  from  the  unknowing  great. 

The  truth  is  that  Jerusalem  was  pre-eminently  the  city  in 
which  there  was  most  opportunity  for  even  the  poorest 
Christians  to  show  the  virtues  of  generosity  and  hospitality, 
because  it  was  crowded  at  frequent  and  regular  intervals  with 
strangers,  many  of  them  poor.  Corinth  and  similar  "  way- 
side "  stations  on  the  great  through  route  of  traffic  had  many 
similar  opportunities ;  ^  but  even  Corinth  in  that  respect 
could  not  be  compared  to  Jerusalem.  These  opportunities 
afforded  admirable  opening  for  the  Christians  to  come  into 
friendly  relations  with  the  Jews  of  distant  lands ;  and  there 
cannot  reasonably  be  any  doubt  that  they  used  these  oppor- 
tunities. It  was  certainly  in  this  way,  through  the  frequent 
journeys  of  Jews  to  and  from  Jerusalem,  that  the  Gospel 
spread  so  early  to  Rome  and  Italy ;  and  it  is  the  reason  for 
the  friendly  relations  that  evidently  existed  between  the 
Roman  Jews  and  the  Christians,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  follow- 
ing pages. 

It  may  be  regarded  as  incontrovertible  that  the  Epistle 

^Church  iti  Rom.  Empire,  pp.  lo,  318  f. 


3IO  XI.    The  Date  and  Authorship  of 

was  not  written  by  Paul.  Origen's  opinion,  "  every  one  com- 
petent to  judge  of  language  must  admit  that  the  style  is  not 
that  of  St.  Paul,"  ^  will  not  be  seriously  disputed,  and  is 
echoed  almost  unanimously  by  modern  scholars  The  few 
exceptions  in  modern  times,  such  as  Wordsworth  and  Lewin, 
may  be  taken  as  examples  of  the  remarkable  truth  that  there 
is  no  view  about  the  books  of  the  Bible  so  paradoxical  as 
not  to  find  some  good  scholar  for  its  champion. 

But  are  we  therefore  to  disconnect  it  absolutely  from  the 
Apostle  Paul  ? 

If  that  were  so,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  such  a  strong  body 
of  early  opinion  should  have  regarded  it  as  originating  in- 
directly from  Paul,  and  as  conveying  his  views  about  a  great 
crisis  in  the  development  of  the  Church.  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria and  Origen,  while  both  recognising  that  the  language 
is  not  that  of  Paul,  suggest  different  theories  to  account  for 
what  they  recognise  as  assured  fact — that  the  views  and  plans 
are  those  of  Paul. 

Now  how  did  Clement  and  Origen  come  to  consider  the 
connection  of  Paul  with  the  Epistle  as  an  assured  fact  ?  It 
was  not  because  the  views  and  ideas  are  those  which  Paul 
elsewhere  expresses,  for,  on  the  contrary,  the  Epistle  presents 
a  different  aspect  of  the  subject  from  the  ideas  expressed  in 
Paul's  Epistles.  It  obviously  was  because  an  old  tradition 
asserted  the  connection. 

Further,  this  belief  and  tradition  is  most  unlikely  to  have 
arisen  without  some  real  ground.  Mere  desire  to  secure 
canonical  authority  for  this  Epistle  is  not  sufficient  reason, 
for  the  Epistle  differs  so  much  from  Paul's  writings  that 
general  opinion,  in  seeking  for  an  apostolic  author,  would 
have  been  more  likely  to  hit  upon  one  of  the  Apostles,  separ- 
^Westcott,  p.  Ixv, 


the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  311 

ated  for  a  time  from  the  community  addressed,  and  hoping 
soon  to  revisit  it  (xiii.  19).  "  The  true  position  of  the  Epistle 
...  is  that  of  a  final  development  of  the  teaching  of  '  the 
three/  and  not  of  a  special  application  of  the  teaching  of  St. 
Paul.  It  is,  so  to  speak,  most  truly  intelligible  as  the  last 
voice  of  the  A  pestles  of  the  Circumcision,  and  not  as  a  pecu- 
liar utterance  of  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  "  ( Westcott,  p. 

41). 

This  tradition  of  a  Pauline  connection  was  so  strong  as  to 
persist  even  though  there  was  prevalent  already  in  the  second 
century  a  clear  perception  that  the  style  was  not  that  of 
Paul.^  It  was  common  in  early  manuscripts  to  place 
Hebrews  in  the  midst  of  Paul's  Epistles,  even  between 
Galatians  and  Ephesians  (as  was  the  case  in  an  authority  on 
which  our  greatest  manuscript,  B,  was  dependent).  Origen 
mentions  that  "  the  primitive  writers "  were  positive  as  to 
the  connection  of  Paul  with  the  Epistle.^ 

A  very  ancient  tradition,  therefore,  of  the  strongest 
character  guaranteed  that  Paul  stood  in  some  relation  to 
the  Epistle.  While  it  evidently  did  not  assert  that  Paul 
was  the  author  in  the  same  sense  as  of  Romans  or  Corin- 
thians, it  did  assert  that  the  thoughts  in  the  Epistle  either 
emanated  from  him,  or  were  approved  by  him  when  written, 

^  Origen  mentions  theories  already  current  in  his  time  that  Clement  of 
Rome  or  Luke  had  written  the  thoughts  of  Paul  in  their  own  words.  Clement 
of  Alexandria  thought  that  Paul  had  written  in  Hebrew,  and  Luke  translated. 
These  prove  that  speculation  was  already  active  when  they  wrote. 

^  Oi  ofxaioi  ii'Spts :  compare  Wordsworth,  p.  356,  on  the  meaning  of  this 
phrase.  How  Dr.  McGiffert  can  say,  "the  idea  that  Hebrews  was  Paul's 
work  appears  first  in  Alexandria  in  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century,  and 
seems  to  have  no  tradition  back  of  it "  (p.  480  note),  is  to  me  unintelligible : 
and  equally  so  his  words,  "  the  only  really  ancient  tradition  that  we  have 
links  the  Epistle  with  the  name  of  Barnabas  (Tertullian,  de  Pud.  20)".  That 
is  a  third  century  statement,  and  Dr.  McGiffert  himself  concedes  that  the 
Pauline  connection  has  second  century  authority. 


312  XI.    The  Date  and  Authorship  of 

or  in  some  way  were  stamped  with  his  authority,  and  that 
the  Epistle  must  be  treated  as  standing  in  the  closest  rela- 
tion to  the  work  of  the  Apostle. 

The  persons  addressed  had  been  Christians  for  a  consider- 
able time,  "  when  by  reason  of  the  time — because  they  had 
been  Christians  so  long — they  ought  to  have  been  teachers, 
they  were  themselves  in  need  of  elementary  teaching  "  :  such 
is  the  implication  of  v.  12} 

They  had  not  heard  the  Gospel  from  Jesus  Himself,  but 
only  from  those  who  had  listened  to  Jesus.  "  (Salvation), 
which,  having  at  the  first  been  spoken  through  the  Lord, 
was  confirmed  unto  us  by  them  that  heard  "  (ii.  3).  It  is,  how- 
ever, a  mistake  to  infer  from  this  that  the  writer  and  the 
readers  were  Christians  "  of  the  second  generation,"  and 
therefore  the  Epistle  must  be  as  late  as  Domitian.  All  the 
3,000  who  were  converted  on  the  fiftieth  day  after  the 
Crucifixion    might   be   addressed    in    the    words    used    in 

ii.  3. 

But,  indubitably,  the  writer  and  the  readers  were  all  alike 
persons  that  had  not  hearkened  to  the  preaching  of  Jesus, 
but  had  only  heard  the  Gospel  at  second  hand  from  men 
who  knew  the  Lord.'^  This  indication  of  their  position 
must  be  combined  with  another. 

"  They  were  addressed  separately  from  their  leaders."  '^ 
This  remarkable  fact  has  not  as  a  rule  been  sufficiently 
studied,  though  almost  every  commentator  from  the  earliest 
times  notes  it.  The  words — "  salute  all  them  that  have  the 
rule  over  you  " — in  xiii.  24,  imply  "  that  the  letter  was  not 
addressed  officially  to  the  Church,  but  to  some  section  of 

iWestcott,  p.  132. 

» It  is  evident  that  Paul  would  never  have  classed  himself  in  the  category 
so  described,  ii.  3. 
*Westcott,  p.  xxxvi. 


the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  313 

it".'  The  inference  is  correctly  drawn  by  Theodoret  : 
"they  that  had  the  rule  did  not  stand  in  need  of  such 
teaching"  as  it  is  the  object  of  the  Epistle  to  convey. 

There  is  implied  in  these  words  (i)  a  marking  off  and 
separating  of  a  body  holding  rule  in  the  community  (of 
which  those  addressed  formed  part)  •  there  was  a  distinct 
class  of  persons  recognised  generally  as  "  the  leaders  "  ;  (2) 
a  certain  distinction  between  the  views  entertained  by  the 
leaders  and  the  views  entertained  by  the  persons  addressed. 

In  what  relation  does  this  peculiar  and  remarkable  fact 
stand  to  the  history  of  the  period,  so  far  as  we  know  it  ? 

There  was  one  community  in  which  the  leaders  were  a 
distinct  and  well-marked  body.  At  Jerusalem  James  and 
the  Twelve  were  a  clearly  defined  body  with  a  peculiar 
standing  and  authority.  That  is  implied  throughout  the 
narrative,  and  is  formally  and  explicitly  recognised  in 
various  passages  in  Acts  and  in  the  Epistles.  But  along 
with  them  must  be  classed  the  original  disciples  that  had 
listened  to  the  words  of  Jesus.  Wherever  they  were,  clearly 
those  who  had  followed  the  Lord  Himself  were  recognised 
as  possessing  dignity  and  character  which  none  converted 
by  men  ever  attained.  In  Jerusalem  this  class  must  have 
constituted  a  certain  considerable  body  even  as  late  as  A.D. 
59.  In  no  other  Church  is  there  likely  to  have  been  more 
than  a  very  few,  if  any,  resident  and  settled  members  of  this 
class. 

The  writer,  himself  a  convert  at  second  hand,  does  not 
presume  to  address  his  "  word  of  exhortation "  to  any  one 
who  had  followed  Jesus  personally. 

Further,  these  leaders  are  conceived  both  by  Paul  and  by 
the  author  of  Acts  as  differing  in  opinion  from  at  least  a 

'  Westcott,  p.  451,  quoting  Theodoret. 


314  XI.    The  Date  and  Authorship  of 

certain  considerable  section  of  the  Christian  community  in 
Jerusalem.  It  is  beyond  doubt  that  Paul  claimed  (and 
Luke  confirmed  the  claim)  to  be  in  essential  agreement  with 
the  leading  Apostles.  It  is  an  equally  indisputable  fact  that 
Paul  was  at  variance  with  a  large  section  of  the  Jewish 
Christians  in  Jerusalem,  who  regarded  him  as  an  enemy  of 
Jewish  feeling  and  as  bent  on  destroying  Jewish  ritual. 

There  was  no  other  community  in  which  such  marked 
divergence  of  view  between  the  leaders  and  the  congrega- 
tion existed,  so  far  as  our  records  show.  There  was  no  other 
community  in  which  it  is  at  all  probable  that  such  a  division 
existed.  We  learn  of  divisions  and  differences  of  opinion 
existing  in  several  other  congregations  ;  but  there  is  not  the 
slightest  appearance  or  probability  that  in  any  of  them  a 
body  of  leaders  took  one  side  and  the  congregation  as  a  mass 
took  the  other  side,  while  in  some  cases  it  is  clear  that  the 
lines  of  division  were  quite  different  in  character.  In  fact, 
there  is  no  allusion  to  anything  like  a  body  possessing 
higher  position  in  any  congregation  except  that  of  Antioch 
(Acts  xiii.  I) ;  and  that  isolated  case  hardly  seems  to  be  one- 
that  would  justify  us  in  speaking  of  a  class  of  r^'^ov^evoi. 

Further,  the  subject  on  which  the  Epistle  dilates  is  the 
subject  on  which  divergence  existed  between  the  leaders 
and  the  general  body  of  the  congregation  in  Jerusalem — 
viz.,  the  relation  of  Judaism  and  the  Law  to  Christianity 
and  Faith.  It  is  precisely  on  that  subject  that  it  would  be 
least  easy  to  address  the  leaders  and  the  mass  at  Jerusalem 
in  the  same  terms. 

Moreover,  in  Acts  xxi.  20-24,  James,  speaking  evidently 
on  behalf  of  the  leaders,  recognises  that  many  myriads  of 
the  Christian  Jews  held  very  different  views  from  what  he 
himself  entertained  about  Paul's  views  on  the  Jewish  ritual. 


the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  315 

They  thought  Paul  was  an  enemy  bent  on  destroying  that 
ritual :  James  and  the  leaders  knew  that  Paul  practised 
that  ritual  personally,  and  James  urged  Paul  to  show  publicly 
his  adhesion  to  and  belief  in  the  value  of  the  ritual.^  The 
writer  of  the  Epistle,  similarly,  is  bent  on  bringing  out  the 
true  character  and  value  of  the  Jewish  ritual,  on  proving  that 
Christianity  does  not  destroy  that  ritual  but  perfects  it,  and 
on  showing  that  the  Christian  principle  of  Faith  was  already 
a  powerful  factor  in  the  life  of  the  ancient  Jews. 

It  is  therefore  certain  that  the  situation  implied  in  the 
Epistle  existed  in  Palestine  during  Paul's  last  stay  in  the 
country ;  and  there  is  no  evidence  that  it  existed  anywhere 
else. 

This  argument  is  based  on  the  supposition  that  the  narra- 
tive in  Acts  is  authoritative,  that  the  picture  which  it  gives 
of  the  harmony  between  Paul  and  the  leading  Apostles  is 
trustworthy,  and  that  Paul  was  justified  in  claiming  Peter  and 
James  and  John  as  friends  and  sympathizers.  Against  this  view 
the  almost  unanimous  consensus  of  modern  scholars  is  that 
the  anticipations  which  Paul  entertained  about  the  right  de- 
velopment of  the  Church  were  out  of  harmony — some  say  to 
a  less,  some  to  a  greater  degree,  while  some  assert  that  they 
were  utterly  discordant — with  the  views  of  the  older  Apostles. 
This  modern  opinion  seems  to  me  erroneous,  not  merely 
to  a  certain  degree,  but  wholly  and  absolutely.  It  is  the 
main  source  of  difficulty  in  first  century  Christian  history 
(along  with  the  topographical  error  about  Galatia  which  is 
closely  linked  to  it).     Here  it  is  the  greatest  cause  of  the 

'  It  must,  of  course,  be  assumed  that  Paul  regarded  the  ritual  as  having  a 
distinct  value  for  Jewish  Christians.  He  continued  through  life  the  attention 
to  Jewish  ritual  in  which  he  had  been  trained.  Accordingly  some  modern 
scholars  regard  the  story  of  James's  advice  given  to  Paul  as  invented  and 
unhis'.orical. 


3i6  XL    The  Date  and  Autho7'ship  of 

difficulties  which  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  offers  to  the 
historical  student.  If  you  accept  Luke's  presentation  of  the 
Apostolic  history,  there  is  no  difficulty,  and  everything  be- 
comes simple. 

In  XV.  24  the  writer  conveys  to  the  readers  the  salutation 
of  "those  from  Italy".  It  is  grammatically  quite  possible  to 
understand  this  Greek  phrase  as  meaning  simply  "  those  who 
belong  to  Italy";  and  this  might  imply  that  the  writer 
conveys  from  some  place  in  Italy,  where  he  composes  the 
letter,  "  the  salutations  of  the  Italian  congregations  generally  " 
to  his  readers.  But,  as  the  Bishop  of  Durham  (from  whom 
I  quote)  goes  on  to  say,  "  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how 
any  one  could  give  the  salutations  of  the  Italian  Christians 
generally  "  ;  the  writer  would  more  naturally  give  the  greeting 
of  the  Church  of  the  city  in  which  he  was  writing  {pi  diro 
'Pa)fjb7]<;  or  the  like) ;  ^  hence  "  it  appears  more  natural  .  .  . 
to  suppose  that  the  writer  is  speaking  of  a  small  group  of 
friends  from  Italy  who  were  with  him  at  the  time". 

The  conclusion  which  the  Bishop  considers  more  natural 
is,  of  course,  imperative  on  our  theory  of  Caesarean  origin. 
There  must  have  existed  near  the  writer,  and  in  communica- 
tion with  him,  a  company  of  persons  belonging  to  various 
towns  of  Italy. 

Now,  are  there  any  circumstances  in  which  a  company 
of  persons  from  Italy  are  likely  to  have  been  at  Caesarea  ? 

1  Westcott,  p.  xliv.  It  is  not  inconceivable  either  that  the  writer  was  on  a 
circular  mission  to  the  Italian  Churches,  or  that  he  wrote  Irom  a  city,  Rome 
or  Puteoli,  where  representatives  of  several  Italian  cities  had  met.  Both 
suppositions,  however,  are  improbable,  and  difficult  to  harmonise  either  with 
the  Epistle  or  with  what  we  know  about  the  history  of  the  time.  A  circular 
mission  through  Italy  was  not  the  experience  which  would  naturally  suggest 
a  letter  of  this  kind;  and  a  meeting  of  representatives  is  also  unlikely  in  it- 
self, and  would  probably  be  explained  by  the  writer,  so  that  the  readers  might 
understand  who  were  the  persons  that  saluted  them. 


the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  317 


Obviously  this  was  quite  a  natural  thing.  A  company  of 
Jews  on  pilgrimage  would  be  pretty  certain  to  use  a  ship 
from  Puteoli  to  Syria  (joining  it  either  at  Puteoli  or  at  some 
of  the  harbours  in  Southern  Italy,  as  it  coasted  along). 
There  were  undoubtedly  such  pilgrim  ships  sailing  every 
spring.  It  was  on  board  a  ship  of  that  kind  that  Paul  dreaded 
a  conspiracy  against  his  life  (Acts  xx.  2,  3).i  The  Roman 
Government  had  often  guaranteed  the  right  of  safe  passage 
of  Jewish  pilgrims  to  Jerusalem.  In  B.C.  49  Fannius,  the 
Governor  of  Asia,  wrote  to  the  Coan  magistrates  on  the 
subject :  the  pilgrim  ships  naturally  passed  by  Cos,  which 
had  been  a  great  Jewish  centre  of  trade  and  banking  as 
early  as  B.C.  138  (i  Mace.  xv.  23).  Compare  the  letter  of 
Augustus  quoted  by  Josephus,  Ant.  Jud.,  xvi.,  6,  2. 

Every  spring,  then,  a  company  of  Italian  Jews  passed 
twice  through  Caesarea  on  their  way  to  and  from  Jerusalem. 
Now  it  is  obvious  that  such  a  company  is  most  unlikely  to 
have  consisted  wholly  of  Christian  Jews  :  it  may  be  regarded 
as  certain  that  there  would  be  a  majority  of  non-Christian 
Jews,  but  also  it  is  probable  that  both  Christian  and  non- 
Christian  Jews  would  travel  in  one  company  in  the  same 
ship.  Except  Paul  the  Christian  Jews  had  not  yet  come  to 
be  regarded  as  foes  by  the  Jews  outside  of  Palestine. 

But  is  it  not  unlikely  that  such  a  company  of  Jews  would 
come  into  social  and  religious  intercourse  with  Paul  and 
Paul's  friends,  considering  the  relations  in  which  Paul  stood 
to  the  Jewish  authorities  of  Jerusalem  ?  Surely  not  at  the 
period  in  which  our  theory  places  the  letter.  A  body  of 
Italian  Jewish  pilgrims  would  be  received  hospitably  by 
Caesarean  Jews,  and  it  is  in  the  last  degree  improbable  that 
the  Christian  Jews  of  Caesarea  would  fall  short  of  their  non- 
'  St.  Paul  the  Traveller,  p.  287,  compare  p.  264. 


3i8  XI.    The  Date  and  Authorship  of 

Christian  brethren.  Certainly,  so  far  as  Paul  had  any  influ- 
ence with  the  Caesarean  Church,  the  Italian  Jews  would  be 
welcomed  and  generously  entertained. 

But  we  are  assuming  there  must  have  been  some  Christians 
among  the  company  of  the  Italian  pilgrims.  The  question 
may  be  raised  whether  this  is  not  improbable  ? 

Certainly  not !  If  Paul  went  on  pilgrimage,  why  not  the 
Italian  Jewish  Christians  of  Italy,  who  were  still  on  far  more 
friendly  terms  with  the  Jews  than  he  was? 

Further,  the  friendly  spirit  which  we  suppose  to  have  ex- 
isted between  the  Italian  pilgrims  and  the  Caesarean  Chris- 
tians harmonises  excellently  with  the  facts  recorded  in  Acts 
xxviii.  17  ff.  The  friendly  tone  of  the  Roman  Jewish  leaders 
towards  Paul,  their  ignorance  (or  rather  diplomatic  ignoring)  ^ 
of  any  hostility  between  him  and  the  Jews,  their  perfect 
readiness  to  hear  what  he  has  to  say,  is  precisely  the  tone 
which  we  suppose  in  Caesarea.  The  one  incident  throws 
light  on  the  other.  The  narrative  in  Acts  xxviii.  17-28  has 
always  been  regarded  as  a  serious  difficulty :  it  is  mentioned 
by  Dr.  Sanday  ^  as  one  of  the  four  striking  "  real  difficulties  " 
of  the  book.  It  has  been  counted  a  difficulty,  because  it 
was  thought  inconsistent  with  the  presumption  from  other 
recorded  facts.  It  ceases  to  be  a  difficulty  when  we  find  it 
in  perfect  harmony  with  the  situation  revealed  in  this  Epistle. 
Moreover,  as  Dr.  Sanday  proceeds :  "  the  indications  which 
we  get  in  Romans  xvi.  as  to  the  way  in  which  Christianity 
first  established  itself  in  Rome  would  be  consistent  with  a 

^  It  is  noteworthy  that  they  do  not  deny  having  heard  of  the  proceedings 
against  Paul.  They  have  no  official  report  by  letter,  and  no  one  has  reported 
to  them  any  actual  crime  of  which  he  had  been  guilty.  They  expressly  say 
that  they  are  aware  of  the  general  bad  feeling  which  existed  against  Paul 
among  Jews. 

■  Bump  ton  Lectures,  1S93,  p.  329,  note. 


the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  319 

considerable  degree  of  ignorance  on  the  part  of  official 
Judaism  '.  The  "  difficulty  "  solves  itself  when  the  evidence 
is  fairly  looked  at  as  a  whole. 

It  is  clear  that,  if  we  are  correct  in  this,  a  common  inter- 
pretation of  Suetonius,  Claud.  25,  must  be  abandoned.  The 
Latin  historian's  words,  Judceos  mipulsore  Chresto  assidiie 
tuniultuantes,  cannot  be  taken  as  an  allusion  made  through 
Roman  ignorance  to  quarrels  which  occurred  between  Chris- 
tian and  non-Christian  Jews ;  such  quarrels  seem  to  belong 
in  Rome  only  to  a  later  period  than  the  time  of  Claudius 
(A.D.  41-54). 

The  salutation  of  the  Italians  would  of  course  be  sent  to 
Jerusalem  on  their  homeward  journey,  not  on  the  way  up  to 
the  Holy  City,  when  they  would  carry  their  salutations  in 
person.  On  the  return  journey  they  would  naturally  send 
greetings  to  their  late  hosts  and  the  whole  community  from 
which  they  had  just  parted,  if  they  happened  to  be  passing 
through  Caesarea  at  the  time  when  a  public  letter  was  about 
to  be  sent  to  Jerusalem. 

This  seems  to  be  self-evident  to  any  one  who  understands 
the  circumstances  and  accompaniments  of  ancient  travel ; 
but  it  may  be  better  to  discuss  the  situation  more  fully, 
inasmuch  as  there  is  a  widespread  idea  that  in  that  period 
people  generally,  and  early  Christians  especially,  were 
governed  in  practical  life  by  totally  different  conditions  from 
ordinary  human  beings ;  and  commentators  or  critics,  who 
write  in  the  study  and  know  or  care  little  about  the  practical 
facts  of  ancient  travel,  sometimes  fail  to  see  what  must 
inevitably  have  happened.  Moreover,  a  consideration  of 
this  case  throws  light  both  on  the  situation  in  which  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  was  written  and  on  the  relations  in 
which  Paul  and  his  companions  stood  to  Cassarea  and  its 


320  XL'  The  Date  and  Authorship  of 

congregation  when  they  arrived  in  A.D.  57  from  the  Aegean 
lands  (Acts  xxi.). 

In  the  first  place,  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  Italian  pil- 
grims when  they  landed  in  the  harbour  of  Caesarea  on  their 
way  up  to  Jerusalem  in  A.D.  59,^  would  rest  there  some  days 
before  they  began  the  land  journey  of  about  sixty  miles  to 
Jerusalem  (just  as  Paul  and  his  company  had  done  two  years 
previously).  After  a  long  voyage  in  an  ancient  ship  with 
its  cramped  space  and  uncomfortable  circumstances,  such 
opportunity  of  refreshment  was  urgently  needed.  Tacitus 
mentions  that  troops,  which  had  been  sent  out  to  the  East 
by  Nero  in  A.D,  68,  and  brought  back  again  forthwith  to 
Italy,  were  incapacitated  by  the  voyage  and  its  discomforts 
for  military  service  in  the  war  of  A.D.  69.''' 

During  these  days  of  rest  the  pilgrims  would  be  in  friendly 
intercourse  with  the  Jews  and  Jewish  Christians  at  Caesarea. 
Hospitality  to  pilgrims  and  travellers  was  a  duty,  incumbent 
on  Jews  and  Christians  alike,  and  this  duty  was  especially 
insisted  on  by  the  early  Church.^  But  there  would  be 
no  motive  for  the  Csesarean  Church  to  send  to  Jerusalem  the 
salutations  of  pilgrims  who  were  themselves  going  up  to 
Jerusalem  and  would  arrive  there  almost  or  quite  as  soon  as 
the  letter.  When  the  pilgrims  were  hiring  horses  and  mak- 
ing their  preparations  for  the  land  journey,*  the  Jewish 
Christians  were  quite  as  likely  to  help  them  as  the  old  Jews. 
Strangers  in  an  eastern  town  are  always  exposed  to  many 
troubles  and  many  attempts  at  overcharge  and  cheating ; 
and  residents  who  were  willing  had  abundant  opportunity 
of  doing  much  service  at  small  cost  to  the  pilgrims.  In  this 
way,  both  by  hospitality  in  their  houses  and  by  kindness 

1  On  the  year,  see  below.  "^  Tacitus,  Hist.,  i.  31. 

^See  p.  309.  *Pauliue  and  other  Studies,  p.  266  flf. 


the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  321 

and  help  in  other  ways,  friendly  relations  were  established 
between  the  pilgrims  and  the  Caesarean  Church  before  the 
former  went  up  to  Jerusalem. 

Secondly,  in  Jerusalem  there  was  abundant  opportunity 
of  a  similar  kind  for  establishing  friendly  relations  between 
the  pilgrims  and  the  Church  of  the  Holy  City ;  and,  as  we 
have  seen  above,  it  must  be  regarded  as  certain  that  the  op- 
portunity was  systematically  used  by  the  wise  policy  of  the 
Christian  leaders. 

When  the  pilgrims  returned,  probably  after  several  weeks, 
to  the  port  of  Caesarea,  their  former  relations  with  the  local 
church  were,  of  course,  resumed.  Again  an  interval  of  at 
least  a  day  or  two  would  almost  invariably  occur  before  a 
suitable  ship  was  found  sailing  to  Puteoli  and  preparations 
for  the  long  voyage  completed.^  In  this  interval  the  Italian 
pilgrims,  01  airo  'IraXta?,  were  again  in  intercourse  with  the 
Caesarean  Church,  and  sent  a  message  of  greeting  in  the 
letter  which  that  church  was  composing  and  sending  to 
Jerusalem.  Very  probably  Paul  himself  was  interested  in 
the  pilgrims  and  in  their  message. 

The  message  in  itself  contributes  to  the  effect  which  the 
Epistle  aims  at.  The  writer,  while  explaining  and  placing 
on  a  well-reasoned  basis  the  true  relation  between  Judaism 
and  Christianity  as  the  less  and  more  perfect  stages  of  one 
faith,  desired  to  facilitate  and  preserve  harmony  between  the 

1  Although  ships,  indubitably,  were  on  the  outlook  for  the  pilgrim  trade, 
and  there  were  thus  ships  carrying  large  parties  of  pilgrims,  it  cannot  be  sup- 
posed that  the  same  ship  in  which  pilgrims  had  come  to  Caesarea  always  lay 
in  the  harbour  waiting  till  they  returned.  In  many  cases  it  would  find 
another  cargo  too  soon,  and  would  sail  as  soon  as  it  was  loaded.  Even  if  in 
some  cases  the  ship  waited  for  the  pilgrims,  it  had  also  to  load ;  and  arrange- 
ments could  not  be  so  exactly  made  that  the  ship  would  sail  a  few  hours  after 
the  party  arrived.     Things  move  more  slowly  in  the  East. 

21 


32  2  XI.   The  Date  and  Authorship  of 

Jews  and  the  Jewish  Christians  ;  and  the  salutation  exempli- 
fies and  confirms  the  harmony. 

Incidentally  the  passage  shows  the  exact  date  when  the 
Epistle  was  composed.  The  final  words  were  written  shortly 
after  the  Passover  ended ;  about  April-May,  either  A.D.  58 
or  59.  The  latter  year  is  preferable,  as  the  analogies  of 
Hebrews  are  to  Paul's  last  defence  before  Agrippa  and 
Festus  (Acts  xxvi.),  not  to  his  earlier  speeches  in  Jerusalem 
and  Rome.  Moreover  the  Epistle  represents  the  outcome 
of  a  long  period  of  thought  and  quiet  discussion,  after  the 
stormy  period  at  the  beginning  of  the  Caesarean  captivity 
was  ended. 

The  relation  of  the  writer  to  the  persons  addressed  is 
shown  most  clearly  in  the  conclusion.  He  was  in  some 
way  prevented  at  the  moment  from  being  with  them  (xiii. 
19) ;  he  does  not  state  what  cause  is  detaining  him  against 
his  will.  Yet  immediately  afterwards  he  says  confidently 
that  he  expects  to  see  them  shortly.  He  therefore  regards  it 
as  practically  fixed  that  he  is  shortly  to  be  in  the  place  where 
the  persons  addressed  are.  Accepting  Delitzsch's  view^ 
that  the  last  few  verses  were  appended  by  Paul  himself,  we 
make  the  following  inferences. 

When  Paul  was  at  Caesarea,  it  is  clear  from  xxv.  9  and 
from  the  general  circumstances  of  the  case,  that  if  the 
formal  trial  of  the  prisoner  occurred,  it  was  almost  certain 
to  be  held  at  Jerusalem,  where  the  evidence  was  most 
readily  accessible,  and  where  the  Jews  wished  it  to  be  held. 
Every  historical  student  knows  how  much  influence  the 
general  wish  of  the  provincials  exercised  on  every  Roman 

^  The  change  of  author  was  marked,  not  merely  by  change  of  handwriting, 
but  probably  also  by  a  break,  or  some  other  device,  which  was  lost  in  the 
later  manuscripts. 


the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  323 

governor.  It  is  therefore  natural  and  probable  that  at  some 
time  during  his  long  imprisonment  Paul  expected  that  the 
trial  would  not  be  longer  delayed,  and  that  he  would  shortly 
be  in  Jerusalem.  This  was,  of  course,  written  before  the 
plot  to  assassinate  Paul  on  the  way  up  to  be  tried  had  been 
discovered  (when,  in  despair  of  a  fair  trial  in  Palestine,  he  was 
driven  to  appeal  to  the  Emperor),  in  the  summer  of  A.D.  59. 

The  reference  to  Timothy  in  xiii.  23  is  obscure  on  every 
theory.  It  touches  facts  of  which  we  are  wholly  ignorant. 
But  the  intention  is  clear  that,  if  Timothy  be  not  detained 
too  long  by  possible  hindrances,  he  will  accompany  the  writer 
to  the  city  where  the  persons  addressed  live.  Timothy,  more- 
over, is  an  intimate  and  dear  friend  of  the  writer,  who  there- 
fore expects  this  dear  friend  to  accompany  him.  Timothy 
at  the  moment  is  away  at  a  distance,  and  there  maybe  im- 
pediments to  his  speedy  arrival ;  but,  if  he  comes  in  time,  it 
is  a  matter  of  course  that  he  will  accompany  the  writer. 

Timothy,  it  is  certain,  accompanied  Paul  to  Jerusalem  in 
A.D.  57  (Acts  XX.  4).  We  need  not  doubt  that  he  and  the 
other  delegates  soon  followed  Paul  to  Caesarea.  It  is,  how- 
ever, in  the  last  degree  improbable  that  the  delegates  all  re- 
mained in  Caesarea  throughout  the  two  years'  imprisonment. 
It  may  be  taken  as  certain  that  Paul  carried  out  his  usual 
policy  of  spending  his  coadjutors  on  missions  both  to  his 
churches  and  to  new  cities,  and  that  mission  work  went  on 
actively  during  that  period.  Paul  then  says :  "  Know  that 
Timothy  has  been  sent  away  on  a  mission,^  with  whom,  if 
he  returns  quickly,  I  will  see  you  ". 

In  the  Epistle  "  we  "  generally  denotes  the  body  of  Chris- 

'  This  interpretation,  advocated  by  Lewis,  seems  more  probable  than  "  set 
free  from  prison  "  :  cp.  Acts  xiii.  3,  and  St,  Paul  the  Traveller,  p.  67  f.  But 
it  seems  self-contradictory  to  suppose  that  his  mission  was  to  carry  the  letter 
to  Jerusalem,  as  .has  been  suggested. 


324  XI.    The  Date  and  Authorship  of 

tians  not  immediate  hearers  of  the  Lord,  in  particular  the 
writers  in  Caesarea  and  the  readers  in  Jerusalem  (though,  of 
course,  in  several  places  what  is  said  would  apply  to  all 
Christians).  Sometimes,  however,  "  we  "  and  "  you  "  are  dis- 
tinguished and  pointedly  contrasted  as  the  writers  and  the 
readers,  as  in  v.  11,  vi,  9,  11.  Moreover,  "we"  sometimes 
(as  ii.  5),  and  "you"  often,  denote  the  single  body  of  writers 
or  of  readers  respectively.  The  writers  express  themselves 
always  as  a  group,  for  the  first  person  singular  in  xi.  32  ^  is 
an  instance  of  literary  and  impersonal  usage,  not  an  in- 
dication of  personality;  and  the  last  few  verses  we  with 
Delitzsch  take  as  added  by  Paul  with  his  own  hand. 

The  personality  of  the  writer  and  his  relation  to  Paul  are 
the  points  in  which  Mr.  Lewis's  theory  seems  to  require 
serious  modification. 

(i)  The  Jewish  nationality  of  the  writer  seems  as  certain 
as  that  of  the  readers :  Mr.  Milligan,  on  p.  ^6  of  the  work 
quoted  above,  says,  "  The  writer,  who  was  clearly  himself  a 
Jew  ".  Probably  this  will  be  disputed  by  no  one,  and  least 
of  all  by  Mr.  Lewis  himself  He,  as  we  may  gather,  would 
explain  that,  when  Luke  (whom  he  considers  to  be  the 
writer  of  the  Epistle)  writes  as  a  Jew,  he  does  so  because  he 
is  expressing  the  thoughts  of  Paul.  This  brings  us  to  the 
second  point. 

(2)  Mr.  Lewis  seems  to  attribute  too  little  independent 
action  to  the  writer.  He  hears  only  Paul  speaking  through 
the  words  of  Luke.  He  holds  that  Luke  was,  if  not  the 
amanuensis,  yet  the  mere  redactor  of  Paul's  thoughts.  That 
appears  a  somewhat  anomalous  and  improbable  position. 
One  can  understand  that  Luke  might  act  as  secretary,  and 

'  The  first  person  singular  is  used  in  the  English  translation  in  ix.  22,  but 
noL  in  the  Greek  text :  here  also  it  is  a  mere  literary  form. 


the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  325 

reproduce  as  faithfully  as  he  could  the  words  and  thoughts 
of  Paul ;  but  one  sees  no  reason  why  Paul  should  instruct 
Luke  as  to  his  ideas  in  a  series  of  short  interviews,^  and  leave 
him  to  express  them  in  his  (Luke's)  own  words  and  style, 
without  making  sure  that  he  succeeded  in  expressing  them 
correctly.  If  the  writer  was  striving  simply  to  express  Paul's 
thoughts  and  ideas,  he  was  not  successful.  The  opinion  of 
scholars  is  practically  unanimous,  that  the  letter  is  not 
Paul's  because  the  ideas  expressed  in  it  are  not  Paul's,  though 
related  to  them.  The  truth  is  that  the  Epistle  is  clearly  not 
an  attempt  by  another  to  express  Paul's  ideas,  but  an  in- 
dependent thinking  out  of  the  same  topics  that  Paul  was 
meditating  on  and  conversing  about  at  Caesarea.  The  person 
who  wrote  the  Epistle  was  not  trying  unsuccessfully  to  ex- 
press Paul's  ideas  as  to  "  Faith  "  and  "  the  Law,"  for  example : 
his  own  individuality  and  character  are  expressed  in  the  use 
which  he  makes  of  those  terms — not  contradictory,  but  com- 
plementary to,  and  yet  absolutely  different  in  nature  from, 
Paul's  ideas. 

It  has  just  been  said  that  Paul  was  thinking  at  Caesarea 
about  the  same  topics  that  the  Epistle  discusses.  Mr.  Lewis 
has  treated  this  subject  excellently,  and  it  should  be  studied 
in  his  own  words.     I  give  only  a  few  examples. 

In  the  first  place,  he  quotes  from  the  address  to  Agrippa 
and  Festus  expressions  which  show  that  Paul  had  recently 
been  dwelling  on  the  topics  of  the  Epistle.  The  idea — 
"  The  hope  of  the  promise  made  of  God  to  the  fathers,  unto 
which  promise  our  twelve  tribes,  instantly  serving  God  night 
and  day,  hope  to  come"  (Acts  xxvi.  6,  7) — moves  in  the 
same  sphere  as  Hebrews.     The  insistence  upon  the  cease- 

'  One  can  hardly  accept  Mr.  Lewis's  interpretation  of  5 jo  fipaxewy  (Heb. 
xiii.)  as  "in  snatches"  during  brief  interviews. 


o 


26  XI.    The  Date  and  Authorship  of 


lessness  of  the  ritual,  the  conception  that  the  Law  may  be 
regarded  as  a  system  of  ritual,  and  "  a  scheme  of  typical  pro- 
visions for  atonement,"  ^  are  noteworthy  in  Paul's  words,  and 
are  characteristic  of  the  Epistle.  Again,  "  the  sufferings  of 
Christ,  as  distinguished  from  his  death,"  are  a  characteristic 
feature  of  Hebrews,  but  not  of  any  of  Paul's  Epistles,  In 
Acts  xxvi.  22  f.,  "  I  continue  unto  this  day  witnessing  to  both 
small  and  great,^  .  .  .  that  Christ  should  suffer ". 

These  are  quoted  as  examples  of  Mr.  Lewis's  striking 
demonstration  of  the  parallelism  between  Paul's  defence 
before  Agrippa  and  the  Epistle,  especially  in  respect  of 
points  which  are  not  characteristic  of  Paul's  Epistles. 

Secondly,  Mr.  Lewis  gives  some  important  arguments  to 
show  that  topics  and  ideas  and  expressions  used  in  Hebrews 
must  have  been  in  Paul's  mind  at  that  period,  in  order  to 
effect  the  transition  from  his  earlier  to  his  later  Epistles. 
These  topics  lead  on  from  Corinthians  and  Romans,  and  are 
presupposed  in  Ephesians,  Philippians,  Colossians. 

An  interesting  little  point  of  expression  lies  in  Paul's  use 
of  the  Song  of  Moses,  Deuteronomy  xxxii.  1-43  :  he  makes 
the  following  quotations  or  references  to  it : — 
Deut  xxxii.  4    in  i  Cor.  x.  4 ; 
„  „       17  >.   I  Cor.  X.  20; 

„  „      25   „  2  Cor.  vii.  5  ; 

„  „      35   „  Rom.  xii.  19  and  Heb.  x.  30;^ 

„      36  „  Heb.  X.  30; 
„  »      43  "  Rom.  XV.  10 ; 

„      43  „   Heb.  i.  6. 

^  Westcott,  p.  lii. 

2  Hebrews  viii.  ii,  "  from  the  least  to  the  greatest ".  Mr.  Lewis  says  that  no 
similar  expression  occurs  in  the  Epistles  of  Paul. 

3  The  two  quotations  are  in  identical  words,  yet  differing  both  from  the 
Septuagint  and  the  Hebrew  text. 


the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  327 

On  the  other  hand,  among  ideas  which  are  characteristic 
of  the  later  Epistles,  but  not  of  the  earlier,  Mr.  Lewis  quotes 
the  headship  of  Christ  over  the  Church,  the  use  of  a(f)eai<i, 
"  forgiveness  of  sins,"  in  Hebrews  ix.  22,  x.  1 8 ;  Ephesians 
i.  7;  Colossians  i.  14,  and  in  the  defence.  Acts  xxvi.  18, 
etc. ;  ^  also  Lightfoot's  note  on  the  analogy  between  the  con- 
text of  Colossians  i.  12  and  Acts  xxvi.  18,  "where  all  the 
ideas  and  most  of  the  expressions  occur,"  points  us  to  the 
fact  that  both  "  are  echoes  of  an  argument  entered  into  at 
length  previously  in  Hebrews  ". 

These  brief  notes  are  not  intended  as  an  adequate  treat- 
ment of  the  subject.  That  would  require  a  detailed  ex- 
amination of  many  passages  in  the  Caesarean  light,  and  a 
discussion  of  several  well-known  arguments.  In  fact,  the 
present  article  is  simply  a  justification  of,  and  a  preface  to,  a 
historical  commentary  on  the  letter. 

In  conclusion,  it  may  be  added  that  probably  the  most 
important  result  of  the  Caesarean  view  is  the  light  it  sheds 
on  the  relation  of  the  Caesarean  Church  to  Paul  on  the  one 
hand  and  to  the  Jewish-Christian  party  on  the  other.  The 
reconciliation  between  the  two  parties  in  the  Church  was 
making  good  progress.  It  is  an  argument  of  my  chapters 
on  Christian  Antiquities  in  Cities  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia 
that  the  reconciliation  was  nearly  complete  in  Asia  Minor. 
Moreover,  as  has  been  shown,  it  justifies  in  a  remarkable 
way  the  historical  accuracy  of  the  book  of  the  Acts.  You 
have  only  to  take  the  right  point  of  view,  and  always  you 
find  Luke  a  safe  guide. 

Note. — Dr.  Harnack  in  a  paper  which  attracted  much 
notice  has  attributed  the  Epistle  to  Priscilla.     In  his  argu- 

1  It  must,  however,  be  noticed  that  the  word  is  used  by  Paul  also  in  Acts 
xiii.  38  (thrice  by  Peter,  Acts  ii.  38,  v.  31,  x.  43). 


328 


XI.    The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 


ment  he  does  not  quote  from  the  Epistle  itself  any  words  or 
thoughts  characteristic  of  a  woman.  It  seems  to  be  an  in- 
dispensable part  of  such  a  theory  that  some  proof  of  womanly 
character  should  be  shown  in  the  letter.  The  allusions  to 
milk,  and  to  folding  up  as  a  garment,  cannot  be  considered 
to  indicate  authorship  of  a  woman,  for  they  are  customary ; 
and  Dr.  Harnack  himself  evidently  thinks  so,  for  he  does 
not  allude  to  them  as  furnishing  any  support  to  his  theory. 
If  one  could  find  the  slightest  indication  of  a  woman's  feeling 
in  the  letter,  one  might  think  of  Philip's  four  daughters,  pro- 
phetesses ;  but,  as  it  is,  there  seems  to  be  absolutely  nothing 
on  that  side  to  lay  hold  of. 


AYPAOMN  AKWini!)rAYKYTATHNGYrATEPAA»eN£NKOYCAN 
rr  APee  NJ6IAKAl4)lA€PriA  AVPOPCCTlANOCKypOY  otiathp 


m^ 


^' 


%    I 

==^ 

^-J 

J       ^ 

^w 


&. 


Fig.  6. — The  Dove  in  the  Art  of  Isaura  (see  p.  385). 


XII. 

THE  CHURCH  OF  LYCAONIA  IN  THE 
FOURTH  CENTURY. 


AYP.-AA61ANA 
€ATTIC  AC  i  TTI 
TAZOHC  XAP 
Al  ct>P0NC0N 

ArroxoiMH 
MMHMiC  XA 


Fig.  7. — The  Cross  in  Lycaonian  Ornamental  Style  (see  p.  406). 

EN9A£^£rm</ikTEXlAYPlTPlCK0N/El  HTPoM 
EoNTAElOXONHAjyclKlETnET^O  EiMKONT 
ANECTHCENAEAvYT«>NTlMoeEOC^loC 
AYToYCYNTHlAIACYM&\^AAE2ANAPlHTIMl 


Fig.  8.— The  Fish  in  the  Art  of  Isaura  (see  p.  403). 


/ 


XII. 

THE  CHURCH  OF  LYCAONIA  IN  THE  FOURTH 
CENTURY. 

The  country  of  Lycaonia  has  furnished  the  largest  body  of 
early  Christian  inscriptions,  with  the  exception  of  the  Cata- 
combs in  Rome.  At  some  time  it  is  proposed  to  publish  the 
whole  collection,  amounting  to  many  hundreds,  mostly  un- 
published ;  but  the  number  known  increases  so  much  every 
year  that  it  is  premature  to  attempt  to  do  so  at  present.  It 
is,  however,  a  useful  task  to  select  a  certain  number  of  the 
most  typical  texts,  to  exhibit  their  value  as  evidence  for  the 
development  of  Christianity  in  its  earliest  Anatolian  seat,  to 
describe  the  problems  which  they  raise,  and  to  suggest  a 
partial  solution  of  some  of  these  problems. 

They  form  a  group  around  Iconium  as  centre,  and  they 
therefore  represent  one  of  the  earliest  and  strongest  bodies 
of  Christian  opinion,  whose  origin  goes  back  to  St.  Paul's 
first  missionary  journey  in  Asia  Minor,  and  whose  ecclesi- 
astical organisation  was  practically  completed  in  its  per- 
manent and  final  form  at  an  earlier  period  probably  than 
the  Church  of  any  other  Roman  province.  The  bishops  of 
every  city  of  Lycaonia  and  of  all  the  region  in  immediate 
connection  with  Iconium  were  present  at  one  or  other  of  the 
two  great  Councils  of  the  fourth  century,  in  A.D.  325  and  381 ;  ^ 

^  Psibela  was  not  represented ;  but  I  believe  that  it  was  then  subject  to 
Laodiceia  and  became  a  city  and  a  bishopric  only  at  the  end  of  the  fifth 
century  under  the  name  Verinopolis.  Also  Sinethandos  became  a  bishopric 
only  in  the  eighth  century. 


332  XII.   The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

and  this  could  hardly  be  the  case  unless  the  ecclesiastical 
organisation  was  practically  complete  in  the  third  century. 
It  was  a  long  journey  from  Lycaonia  to  Nicaea  or  to 
Constantinople,  where  those  Councils  were  held  ;  yet  the 
Lycaonian  bishops  were  far  more  completely  represented 
than  those  of  provinces  which  lay  within  easier  reach  of  the 
Councils.  Taking  this  in  conjunction  with  the  fact  that  one 
of  the  earliest  Councils  was  held  at  Iconium  in  A.D.  236,  we 
must  regard  Lycaonia  as  having  been  very  important  in 
Christian  history  during  the  third  century. 

It  would,  therefore,  be  useful  to  study  the  Church  organisa- 
tion, the  priests  and  other  ecclesiastical  officials,  and  the 
relation  in  which  they  stood  to  the  ordinary  population  in 
this  old  Christian  land  during  the  fourth  century.  The 
method  must  start  from  the  inscriptions  and  compare  them 
with  contemporary  literature.  A  few  initial  steps  are  made 
in  this  paper,  which  may  facilitate  the  way  for  deeper  study, 
and  show  what  value  and  interest  belong  to  the  work. 

The  following  table  gives  a  list  of  the  bishoprics  from 
which  are  drawn  the  documents  which  are  here  described. 
As  the  political  organisation  varied  greatly  in  the  Roman 
period,  I  give  a  statement  of  the  Provincial  system  at 
different  epochs.  The  original  Province  of  Galatia  included 
almost  the  whole  of  these  bishoprics,  until  a  few  of  them 
were  detached  at  the  formation  of  the  triple  Province  Cilicia- 
Lycaonia-Isauria,  probably  about  135  A.D.  After  South 
Galatia  was  made  into  a  separate  Province  called  Pisidia 
about  295,  the  majority  of  them  were  finally  detached  from 
Galatia.  In  372  a  new  Province  Lycaonia  was  formed  out 
of  parts  of  Pisidia  and  Isauria. 


m  the  Fourth  Century 


zzz 


Province 

after 
A.D.  372. 

.2 

0    „    ^    .             .                                               .2           .2 

s =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =-2  ,  -S 

w 

U              M 

2;     .  *^ 

0  <  "^ 

Ph           '^ 

rt                .2                          rt           .2                 rt            t^ 
.^    -   _   -'3 .^    -   -^    -    -   -J2    -   -'§ 

Province  in 
THE  Third 
Century. 

Province  in 
St.  Paul's  Time. 

2     1 

1    =      1    :^ 

<            < 
0             0 

.2                         ^    =.^'§    =.5 

crt       ~      "      "      "      "-^            03-3            rt,                              -      .~      -      -      «      ^ 

0                       Ui      Ot^      'J5 

Bishops 
A.D.  381. 

Amphilochius 

Paulus 

Darius 

Cyrillus 

Daphnus 

Theodosius 

Hilarius 

Inzos  (Inzas  [?]) 

Aristophanes 

Leontius 

Eustathius 

Eugenius 
Severus  in  372 

X    10 

Ph      N 

0    r<^ 

K      . 
£2    Q 

Eulalius 

Patricius 

Theodorus 

Cyrillus 

Tiberius 

Paulus 

Stephanus 
Theodorus  ^ 

Erechtius 
Julius  Eugenius 2 
Academius 

Iconium 

Lystra 

Misthia 

Amblada 

Vasada 

Homonades 

Ilistra 

Laranda 

Derbe  and  Possala 

Barata 

Hyde 

Isaura  Nova 

Corua 

Savatra 

Perta 

Canna 

Egdaumava  and  Drya 

Laodiceia 

Pappa 

Sinethandos 

Isaura  Palaia 

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XII.   TAe  Church  of  Lycaonia 


I.  The  basis  of  all  historical  study  must  be  the  chronologi- 
cal arrangement  of  the  documents ;  but  as  we  approach  the 
Christian  inscriptions  of  Lycaonia,  we  encounter  the  initial 
difficulty  of  specifying  the  period  to  which  they  belong. 
Whereas  the  Phrygian  Christian  inscriptions  are  frequently 
dated  exactly  by  year,  month  and  day,  and  the  dated  texts 
form  a  fixed  and  certain  series  alongside  of  which  the  undated 
can  be  arranged  with  an  approximation  to  certainty,  not  a 
single  Lycaonian  inscription  has  been  found  dated  according 
to  an  era,  such  as  was  used  in  Phrygia ;  the  custom  of 
dating  by  an  era  was  rarely,  or  not  at  all,  practised  in 
Lycaonia.  Except  where  an  Emperor  or  other  known 
person  is  mentioned,  no  Lycaonian  inscription  can  be  fixed 
by  external  and  indubitable  evidence ;  and  among  the 
Christian  inscriptions  that  means  of  determining  the  period 
is,  of  course,  rarely  available.  The  only  useful  method  is  to 
arrange  them  in  classes,  according  to  the  formulae  used,  then 
to  place  these,  as  far  as  possible,  in  chronological  succession, 
and  finally  to  try  to  determine  approximately  the  period 
when  the  earliest  class  began  and  when  the  others  were  in 
use. 

A  first  question  that  arises  in  this  connection  is  whether 
there  is  any  reason  to  expect  that  in  Lycaonia  Christian 
inscriptions  should  begin  later  than  in  Phrygia.  So  far  as 
regards  the  time  when  the  new  religion  became  so  general 
in  the  country  that  a  large  number  of  Christian  epitaphs 
could  be  openly  set  up,  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  Asian 
Phrygia  was  more  quickly  Christianised  than  the  country 
about  Iconium  and  Pisidian  Antioch,  z>.,  the  Southern  Galatia 
of  St.  Paul's  time.  On  the  contrary,  Christianity  seems,  so 
far  as  the  indications  afford  ground  for  judgment,  to  have 
penetrated  farther  to  the  North,  and  therefore  presumably 


in  the  Fourth  Century  335 

more  rapidly,  from  Iconium  than  from  the  first  centre  in 
Asian  Phrygia  {viz.,  the  Lycus  valley,  where  Colossae, 
Laodiceia  and  Hierapolis  were  situated).  So  far  as  this 
consideration  goes,  we  should  expect  Christian  inscriptions 
to  be  numerous  in  Lycaonia  at  an  earlier  time  than  in 
Phrygia. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  ordinary  Pagan  epigraphy  seems 
to  have  spread  from  the  West  eastwards,  and  to  have  been 
generally  practised  in  Phrygia  earlier  than  in  Lycaonia  or 
Galatia  or  Cappadocia  Epigraphy  spread  along  with  the 
Greek  language  and  education.  From  this  point  of  view 
Christian  epigraphy  was  probably  affected  by  the  general 
principle,  and  should  be  dated  later  in  Lycaonia  than  in  Asian 
Phrygia.  But  the  difference  in  time  cannot  have  been  very 
great,  especially  as  it  seems  clear  that  Christianity  was  an 
effective  agent  in  spreading  the  knowledge  of  Greek  and 
killing  the  native  languages  in  Anatolia.^  It  seems  safe  to 
suppose  that  Christian  epigraphy  was  not  more  than  fifty 
years  later  in  Lycaonia  than  in  Asian  Phrygia.  Now  the 
earliest  Christian  epitaphs  known  in  Phrygia  are  fixed 
about  A.D.  192  and  about  224,  while  about  250  the  dated 
inscriptions  become  numerous.^ 

On  this  line  of  argument  we  should  have  to  look  for  the 
earliest  Christian  epitaphs  in  Lycaonia  about  A.D.  240,  and 
expect  that  about  300  they  should  be  common ;  but  as  300 
lies  within  the  time  of  the  severest  persecution,  we  should 
rather  regard  310-400  as  the  time  when  they  were  frequent. 
A.D.  250-360  is  the  period  when  the  rich  Christian  epigraphy 
of  Nova  Isaura  (between  Lystra  and  Derbe)  has  been  placed 

1  See  Zeitschriftf.  vgl.  Sprachforschung,  N.F.  viii.,  p.  382  f.,  and  Oesterr, 
yahreshefte,  1905,  Beiblatt,  introd.  to  art.  on  "  Later  Phrygian  Inscriptions  " ; 
also  above,  p.  146. 

^Cities  and  Bish.  of  Phr.,  ii.,  pp.  526,  713. 


2,2,^  XII.    TAe  Church  of  Lycaonia 

according  to  a  careful  examination  and  argument ;  ^  but  it  is 
mostly  of  an  earlier  type  than  Lycaonian  epitaphs  in  general. 

As  a  general  rule  it  is  certain  that  formulae  which  ap- 
proximate in  form  to,  or  are  identical  with,  Pagan  formulae 
were  earlier  in  origin  than  those  which  are  overtly  Christian 
in  character.  As  has  been  frequently  pointed  out,  Christian 
society  and  social  customs  were  only  slowly  differentiated 
from  the  common  everyday  society  and  customs  of  the  time. 
This  then  must  be  taken  as  a  principle  to  start  from,  that 
epitaphs  expressed  according  to  a  form  ordinarily  used  by 
the  Pagans  are  to  be  arranged  earlier  in  chronological  order 
than  those  which  are  purely  Christian  in  character.  This 
principle  will,  at  once,  simplify  our  task  greatly.  The 
following  criteria  of  date  may  be  enumerated. 

It  will,  I  think,  be  found  that  several  formulae,  which 
probably  most  scholars  were  formerly  disposed  to  consider 
as  quite  late  and  purely  Byzantine  in  period — as  was 
formerly  the  present  writer's  view — had  come  into  use  in 
Lycaonia  at  least  as  early  as  the  fourth  century  ;  and  there 
is  some  probability  that  part  of  the  earliest  Christian  sym- 
bolism in  art  originated  or  at  least  was  very  early  adopted  in 
common  use  in  that  country. 

(i)  The  overwhelming  majority  of  Pagan  epitaphs  in  the 
central  regions  of  Asia  Minor  under  the  Roman  Empire 
follow  the  form  that  such  and  such  a  person  constructed 
the  tomb  for  himself,  or  for  some  other  person  or  persons, 
or  for  both  himself  and  others.  The  construction  of  the 
tomb  was  a  religious  duty;  and  the  document  began  by 
mentioning  the  performance  of  this  duty.  The  Christian 
epitaphs,  which  are  expressed  in  this  form,  may  be  placed 

'  See  Miss  Ramsay's  paper  in  Studies  in  the  Art  and  History  of  the  Eastern 
Roman  Provinces,  1906,  p.  i  ff. 


in  the  Fourth  Century 


odi 


in  the  earliest  period.  Certain  individual  epitaphs  of 
this  class  present  various  other  features,  which  point  to  an 
early  date,  and  thus  confirm  the  general  principle.  The  names 
and  the  lettering  are,  as  a  whole,  of  an  early  type ;  neither 
of  these  criteria  are  sufficiently  definite  to  date,  or  even 
fix  the  order  of,  the  inscriptions,  but  occasionally  they  fur- 
nish in  isolated  cases  strong  and  even  complete  evidence. 
The  presumption  is  that  epitaphs  with  this  formula  are  not 
later  than  the  fourth  century;  and  the  change  to  a  new 
form  probably  began  soon  after  350. 

In  some  cases  the  name  of  the  person  buried  is  placed 
first  (accusative)  and  the  maker  of  the  tomb  is  mentioned  at 
the  end  (nominative).  One  might  at  first  be  disposed  to 
regard  these  as  indicating  a  transition  to  the  second  class  of 
epitaphs,  and  to  place  them  later  than  the  straightforward 
formula ;  but  the  examples  that  occur  do  not  suggest  a  late 
date. 

(2)  The  formula,  "here  lies  so-and-so," ^  is  of  a  later 
period.  It  was  imitated  from  the  Latin  hie  jacet,  and  is 
more  characteristic  of  the  cosmopolitan  religion  Christianity 
than  of  the  more  localised  paganism ;  but  it  is  not  confined 
to  the  former.  It  is  a  sign  probably  rather  of  the  fourth 
century  or  later,  than  the  third.  The  employment  of  this 
formula,  with  the  preceding  one  introduced  in  a  supple- 
mentary way  at  the  conclusion  of  the  epitaph,  characterises  a 
series  of  grave-stones  which  probably  belong  to  the  period 
A.D.  340-380:  they  are  chiefly  metrical  epitaphs.  A  more 
overtly  Christian  form,  "  here  has  been  laid  to  rest,"  ^  may 
be  regarded  as  a  later  development,  and  assigned  to  the  end 
of  the  fourth  century  and  later.     These  classes  of  formula 

'  (vda  or  ivQi^i  Ke'irat  or  KariKetTai. 

^ivddSf  K6K0ijU7}Tai,  KfKiiSfuTat,  iKoturidt] :  the  last  is  probably  latest. 

22 


;^2,S  XII.    TAe  Church  of  Lycaonia 

lasted  very  long   through   Byzantine   time.      The   periods 
specified  here  represent  merely  the  probable  beginning. 

(3)  The  name  Aurelius  (usually  Aur.),  employed  in  Greek 
incorrect  fashion  as  a  praenomen,  indicates  the  period  A.D. 
220-330  (see  commentary  on  No.  15). 

(4)  The  name  Flavius  (usually  Fl.  or  sometimes  Fla.,  i.e.^ 
Phi.  or  Phla.),  employed  in  the  same  fashion,  marks  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Constantinian  dynasty;  and  belongs  to  the 
period  A.D,  330-400  or  later.  Such  cases  are  much  less 
numerous  than  the  use  of  Aur.,  as  the  Latin  style  of  using 
two  and  three  names  passed  into  desuetude,  and  the  Greek 
fashion  of  the  single  name  became  predominant.  Moreover 
inscriptions  became  rarer  after  A.D.  400. 

(5)  The  notnen  Julius  is,  on  the  whole,  remarkably  com- 
■mon  in  these  epitaphs.  It  occurs  too  early  to  have  been 
suggested  by  the  occurrence  of  the  name  in  the  later  Con- 
stantinian family.  Nor  is  it  likely  to  have  originated  from 
a  short-lived  Emperor  like  Philip.  More  probably  it  belongs 
to  older  usage,  which  persisted  through  the  centuries. 
Especially  among  the  Jews  Julius  Caesar  and  the  early  Em- 
pire roused  strong  partisanship ;  and  the  name  Julius  is 
likely  to  have  been  much  used  among  them.  They  were 
strong  in  the  chief  Lycaonian  cities. 

(6)  The  name  Valerius  belonged  to  the  dynasty  of  Dio- 
cletian, and  was  not  likely  to  be  favoured  by  Christians  ex- 
cept through  its  connotation  (as  connected  with  valere,  to  be 
strong). 

(7)  The  use  of  the  Roman  triple  name  is  an  indication  of 
early  date.  In  rural  Lycaonia  it  seems  to  have  ceased  be- 
fore A.D.  400. 

(8)  The  formula  "  Here  lies  the  slave  of  God  "  (0  Zov\o<^  tov 
Oeov),  followed  by  the  name  of  the  deceased,  belongs  to  a 


in  the  Fourth  Century  339 

much  more  developed  stage  of  Christian  expression.  It 
cannot  safely  be  dated  before  the  fifth  century,  and  it  lasted 
long. 

II.  The  only  Christian  inscription  of  Lycaonia  that  can  be 
dated  with  exactness  is  the  following,  about  A.D.  338-340. 
It  confirms  the  conjectural  dating  of  these  inscriptions, 
adopted  from  the  general  criteria  above  stated,  and  pub- 
lished in  the  Expositor^  1905-6. 

I.  Laodicea  Katakekaumene  on  a  sarcophagus. 
Marcus  Julius  Eu[gen]ius,  son  of  Cyrillus  Celer  of  (the 
village)  Kouessos  and  senator  (of  Laodicea),  after 
having  been  a  soldier  in  the  Governor's  maniple  in 
Pisidia,  and  having  married  Gaia  Julia  Flaviana, 
daughter  of  Gaius  Nestorianus,  a  man  of  (Roman) 
senatorial  rank  ;  and  having  gained  military  honours ; 
and  after  the  command  had  meanwhile  gone  forth  in 
the  time  of  Maximin  that  the  Christians  should  sacri- 
fice and  should  not  retire  from  military  service ;  and 
after  having  endured  very  many  tortures  under  Dio- 
genes, Governor  (of  Pisidia) ;  and  after  having  suc- 
ceeded in  retiring  from  military  service,  guarding  the 
faith  of  the  Christians ;  and  after  having  spent  a 
short  time  in  the  city  of  the  Laodiceans ;  and  after 
having  been  constituted  bishop  through  the  will  of 
the  Almighty  God ;  and  after  having  administered 
the  episcopate  during  25  full  years  with  much  dis- 
tinction ;  and  after  having  rebuilt  from  the  founda- 
tions the  entire  church  and  all  the  adornment  around 
it — i.e.  (consisting)  of  stoai  and  tetrastoa  and  paint- 
ings and  screens  and  water-tank  and  entrance  gate- 
way along  with  all  the  constructions  in  masonry — 
and  having,  in  a  word,  set  everything  in  order ;  and 


340  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 


*=  «  5 


J  ?i  ^.^  3^^  ^-1-^^.1.  Mr§§     12^ 

*•  '-^  -^  -     g  ^  a  ^  t  ^  "^"S       b  ^   I"  £  e  -e  o       S   - ,,  ^ 


« 


o   o 


t^         c^t--^-sp'"S;^g^t-  ^'r»  I — I       a.  o 


e  "t  £^^?  2  a  t-  g  ^  '^  a,V^3  §  ,t  i- 


b 


g^ 


ti    ^-    ,yj  t,  bo  b  Soei<Sl-        -^c: 


Q. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  341 

renouncing  the  life  of  men  (for  a  hermit's),  I  made 
for  myself  sepulchral  buildings  {peltd)  and  a  sarco- 
phagus, on   which  ^    I    caused    to   be    engraved    all 
these   afore-mentioned  words,   to   be  my  tomb  and 
that  of  the  succession  of  my  race. 
This  inscription,  which  was  found  by  Mr.  W.  M.  Calder 
of  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  in  July,   1908,  and  published  by 
him  in  the  Expositor,  November,  1908,  is  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable documents  of  the  kind  that  has  ever  been  found, 
and  a  historical  authority  of  the  first  importance.     It  ranks 
next  in  interest  to  the  epitaph  of  Avircius  Marcellus  in  the 
list  of  Christian  inscriptions  ;  and  is  so  full  of  historical  sug- 
gestiveness,  that  one  finds  it  hard  to  restrict  the  commentary 
on  it  within  moderate  limits. 

Marcus  Julius  Eugenius  was,  like  so  many  of  the  leading 
men  in  the  early  Christian  history  of  Anatolia,  born  of  one 
of  the  wealthy  families,^  which  could  afford  to  give  the 
higher  education  to  their  scions.  In  accordance  with  his 
birth  from  a  leading  provincial  family,  he  entered  the  Im- 
perial service,  the  door  of  which  was  through  a  military 
career.  He  was  enrolled  in  the  body  of  troops  attached  to 
the  immediate  service  of  the  Governor  of  the  Province 
Pisidia.  He  must  therefore  have  been  stationed  at  Pisidian 
Antioch.  There  he  married  Gaia  Julia  Flaviana,  daughter 
of  Gaius  (Julius)  Nestorianus,  who  was  a  member  of  the 
Roman  Senate,  and  therefore  belonged  to  the  aristocracy  of 
the  Empire.  It  is  not  open  to  doubt  that  Julius  Eugenius 
was  an  officer,  but  he  intentionally  refrains  from  stating  his 
rank,  whether  because  he  thought  that  this  was  of  too  purely 
mundane  interest,  or   because  an  officer  was   obliged,  not 

^The  inscription  is  said  to  be  on  the  sarcophagus,  not  on  the  pelta. 
^  On  the  importance  of  this  fact,  see  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  p.  376. 


342  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

merely  to  acquiesce  tacitly  in  pagan  ceremonial  (as  the 
private  soldiers  were),  but  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  re- 
ligious ritual  of  the  regiment ;  and  he  was  unwilling  to  lay 
stress  on  this  aspect  of  his  career.  He  mentions,  however, 
that  he  served  with  distinction,  which  may  be  taken  to  mean 
that  he  gained  decorations  and  medals.^ 

Meantime  there  went  forth  an  Imperial  decree  in  the  time 
of  Maximin  that  the  Christians  should  offer  sacrifice  (in  the 
State  religion)  and  should  not  retire  from  military  service. 
This  is  a  novel  and  striking  record,  which  throws  unexpected 
light  on  the  character  of  the  persecution  ordered  by  Maxi- 
min. Here  is  absolutely  contemporary  evidence,  and  the 
circumstances  in  which  it  was  written  down  place  it  beyond 
all  suspicion  of  being  intended  for  temporary  effect  or 
suggested  by  controversy. 

During  the  persecution  of  Diocletian,  A.D.  303,  the  inten- 
tion was  at  first  to  clear  the  army  of  Christians,  and  Christian 
soldiers  were  in  the  opening  stage  of  the  persecution  given 
the  choice  between  dismissal  from  the  honour  of  service  and 
compliance  with  the  Imperial  decrees  enforcing  sacrifice.^ 
A  large  number  of  soldiers,  preferring  their  religion,  forth- 
with abandoned  their  career.  Thereafter  persecution,  which 
had  not  originally  been  contemplated,  was  begun  ;  and 
soldiers  were  executed  on  their  confession.  And  again  at  a 
later  time,  when  Licinius  was  preparing  for  the  final  struggle 
against  Constantine  in  A.D.  315  and  323,  he  tried  to  purge 
his  army  of  Christians. 

In  contrast  with  this  policy  it  appears  that  in  the  time  of 
Maximin,  A.D.  307-313,  an  Imperial  decree  forbade  Chris- 

^  Dondtus  donis  militaribus. 

"Eusebius,  Hist.  Eccles.,  p.  viii.  i.,  Lactantius,  de  Mart.  Persec,  x.,  quoted 
by  Harnack,  Verbreitting  (ed.  2),  ii.,  p.  46  f.,  and  Expansion  of  Christianity, 
ii.,  p.  211  f. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  343 

tians  to  give  up  military  service  (doubtless  attempting  to 
coerce  them  into  cortipliance  with  the  State  ritual).  Be- 
yond question,  the  reason  must  have  been  that  the  enforced 
retirement  of  so  many  Christian  soldiers  was  weakening  the 
army  too  much.  It  is  certain  that  the  armies  of  the  Eastern 
Empire  were  largely  composed  of  Christians,  and  Maximin 
found  that  the  earlier  policy  was  dangerous.  If  Licinius 
recurred  to  the  older  policy,  the  reason  was  easy  to  see. 
His  enemy,  Constantine,  was  recognised  as  the  champion 
of  the  Christians ;  and  Licinius  was  afraid  to  trust  Christians 
to  fight  against  him.  This  war  was  fought  by  Licinius  as 
the  champion  of  paganism. 

Already,  in  the  time  of  Diocletian,  it  is  apparent  from  the 
Acta  of  St,  Maximilian  that  Christians  were  being  compelled 
to  enlist :  Maximilian,  in  spite  of  his  protests  that  he  was 
a  Christian  and  could  not  be  a  soldier,  was  measured  and 
put  through  the  first  stages  of  enforced  conscription.^ 
Apparently,  it  was  hoped  that  he  would  submit  and  accept 
the  position  when  he  found  there  was  no  escape ;  and  pro- 
bably the  suspicion  was  entertained  that  he  was  merely  shirk- 
ing service  under  the  plea  of  religion.  When  he  persevered 
he  was  executed. 

The  Imperial  and  ecclesiastical  orders  regarding  military 
service  form  a  remarkable  series  which  throw  light  on  one 
another  and  on  the  relation  of  the  Church  to  the  State. 

(i)  Diocletian  and  Maximian  in  A.D.  303  ordered  Christians 
to  leave  the  service.  They  must  have  relied  on  the  men's 
loyalty  or  the  attractions  of  the  army  to  make  Christians 
abandon  their  faith ;  and,  evidently,  these  proved  strong 
influences. 

(2)  Maximin  forbade  Christians  to  leave  the  service,  when 

^  Harnack,  Verbreitung,  p.  48  (ed.  2);  Expansion  of  Christianity,  ii.,  p. 
214;  Ruinatt,  Acta  Sincera  Mart.,  p.  341  (Ratisbon,  1859). 


344  XII.   The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

the  Eastern  army  was  being  dangerously  weakened  by  the 
loss  of  the  Christian  soldiers,  who  abandoned  the  service 
rather  than  their  religion. 

(3)  The  Council  of  Aries  forbade  soldiers  to  lay  down 
arms  in  time  of  peace.  This  implies  that  the  Church  now 
took  the  side  of  the  Christianised  Empire  of  the  West  and 
ordered  Christians  to  remain  in  the  army  and  not  to  abandon 
the  service  on  grounds  of  conscience. 

(4)  Licinius  in  his  war  against  Constantine,  315  and  323, 
ordered  Christians  to  leave  the  army  of  the  East.  He  could 
not  trust  them  to  fight  for  him  against  Constantine. 

(5)  The  Nicene  Council  in  325  decreed  very  severe  penal- 
ties against  those  who,  after  having  left  the  army,  had  re- 
sumed service.  This  cannot  be  taken  as  referring  to  ancient 
events  in  the  persecution  of  Diocletian  or  of  Maximin.  It 
applies  to  those  who  had  returned  to  the  army  in  323  and 
fought  against  Constantine.  Licinius  evidently  tried  to  at- 
tract the  Christians  back  to  the  ranks  and  succeeded :  some 
were  even  eager  to  return.  Here  again  we  find  the  Church 
officially  siding  with  the  Christian  Emperor,  and  using 
ecclesiastical  penalties  to  enforce  loyalty.  The  Church  at 
Nicaea  definitely  takes  one  side  in  a  political  question,  and 
begins  the  close  alliance  with  the  Imperial  Government,  on 
which  see  Article  IV.  in  this  volume. 

The  edict  under  Maximin  must  have  been  issued  shortly 
after  his  accession  to  the  Imperial  dignity  in  A.D.  307,  It 
was  followed  by  the  arrest  and  torture  of  the  young  officer 
in  Pisidia  by  order  of  the  governor  Diogenes.  The  official 
in  question,  Valerius  Diogenes,  is  known  from  other  docu- 
ments ^  to  have  governed  Pisidia  about  this  time.  His  date 
is  fixed  by  the  fact  that  at  Apameia  he  erected  a  monument 

'C.I.L.,  iii.,  6807,  13661, 


in  the  Fourth  Centiiry  345 

in  honour  of  the  Empress  Valeria,  who  fell  into  unmerited 
disgrace  and  had  to  flee  from  court  in  A.D.  311.  Diogenes, 
therefore,  was  governor  before  that  year ;  and,  as  there  is  no 
reason  to  think  that  duration  of  office  was  longer  at  this  time 
than  previously,  it  is  probable  that  Julius  Eugenius  suffered 
shortly  before  the  persecution  was  stopped  by  edict  of 
Galerius  in  A.D.  311.  The  edict  of  Maximin,  in  that  case, 
would  be  a  supplementary  decree  issued  during  the  long 
persecution  303-311,  and  not  mentioned  by  Eusebius  in  his 
History. 

But  the  possibility  must  be  considered  that  Diogenes  may 
have  governed  Pisidia  for  a  longer  period,  and  that  the  time 
when  Eugenius  suffered  was  during  the  recrudescence  of  per- 
secution in  the  East  under  Maximin  in  A.D.  312  and  313. 
In  that  case,  however,  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  this  edict  of 
Maximin  with  the  description  of  his  conduct  as  given  by 
Eusebius:  he  did  not  issue  any  formal  edict  annulling 
Galerius's  act  of  toleration,  but  contented  himself  with 
sending  letters  and  practically  setting  aside  the  edict  of 
grace,  until  at  last  just  before  his  death  he  issued  a  new 
edict  of  toleration.  All  reasons,  therefore,  point  to  the 
earlier  date. 

We  conclude,  then,  that  Eugenius  suffered  about  A.D.  310, 
and  that  his  escape  from  death  (which  is  contrary  to  the  other 
evidence  about  the  character  of  the  great  persecution)  may 
have  been  due  either  to  the  fact  that  towards  the  end  feeling 
was  changing  and  punishments  were  not  always  carried  so  far, 
or  to  the  mildness  of  persecution  in  Pisidia  (see  No.  28). 

Julius  Eugenius  obtained  permission  to  retire  from  military 
service,  and  settled  in  Laodicea,  where  he  was  soon  made 
bishop,  about  A.D.  314-316  (see  p.  351).  He  devoted  him- 
self to  the  restoration  of  the  church,  which  had  evidently 


346  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycao7iia  ' 

been  destroyed  in  the  great  persecution  and  had  to  be  re- 
built from  the  foundations.  This  is  in  striking  agreement 
with  the  History  of  Eusebius,  who,  immediately  after  the 
final  edict  and  the  death  of  Maximin,  proceeds  to  describe 
the  restoration  of  the  churches.  The  new  churches  were 
far  more  splendid  than  those  which  had  been  destroyed. 
Christianity  was  now  dominant  and  prosperous ;  money 
flowed  in  ;  and  the  Imperial  bounty  contributed  to  the  re- 
building.i  The  emperors  had  always  made  a  practice  of 
contributing  liberally  to  works  of  public  utility ;  and  churches 
were  now  regarded  as  a  necessary  part  of  municipal  equip- 
ment. As  here  the  Laodicean  church  was  restored,  e«  ^e^e- 
\iwv,  so  Eusebius  tells  that  they  were  rebuilt  Ik  ^dOpcav.  As 
Eugenius  mentions  the  "  adornment "  or  "  equipment "  {Koa- 
fio^)  of  his  church,  so  Eusebius,  x.,  4,  in  the  panegyric  which 
he  addressed  to  Paulinus,  bishop  of  Tyre,  on  the  dedication 
of  his  new-built  church,  speaks  of  "  the  splendid  ornaments 
of  this  temple  "  (ra  rovSe  rov  vecb  irepLKoXXr)  Koa-fi'^fiard). 

We  may  fairly  take  the  rest  of  Eusebius's  very  full  de- 
scription as  of  the  church  at  Tyre  as  an  illustration  of  what 
Eugenius  did.  Paulinus  used  the  old  site,  which  had  been 
purposely  polluted  with  all  kinds  of  impurities,  so  that  the 
cleansing  of  it  was  a  troublesome  work.  In  the  old  establish- 
ment, the  outer  gates  (TrvXai)  had  been  cut  down  with  axes, 
the  holy  books  had  been  destroyed  and  the  church  had  been 
burned ;  ^  but  Paulinus  built  a  new,  much  larger  and  more 
magnificent  church  and  series  of  constructions,  surrounded 
by  a  wider  enclosing  wall  (7re/)/y3o\o<?).  On  the  east  side  he 
built  a  large  and  lofty  entrance  (TrpoTrvXov),  calculated  to 
attract  the   attention   even    of  strangers    and  enemies,   to 

'  Eusebius,  Hist.  Eccles.,  x.,  2,  and  the  African  donations,  x.,  6  (Calder). 
*  (ytirvpKTav  tv  Trvpl  rh  ayiaffriipiov  rov  &fov. 


171  the  Fourth  Cent^iry  347 

astound  them  by  the  contrast  of  the  present  splendour  and 
the  former  desolation,  to  afford  them,  as  they  stood  far  outside, 
a  good  view  of  all  that  was  inside,  and  entice  them  to  enter. 
Passing  through  the  outer  gateway  or  Propylon,  the  visitor  or 
the  devotee  came  next  into  a  wide  square  space,  open  to  the 
heavens,  surrounded  by  four  covered  porticoes  supported  on 
columns.  From  column  to  column  stretched  screens  of 
wooden  lattice-work.^  This  atrium  is  what  Eugenius  calls  a 
tetrastoon.  In  the  open  space  of  the  atrium  there  were  foun- 
tains of  flowing  water,  so  that  all  visitors  might  enter  the  holier 
buildings  purified  and  not  with  unwashed  feet.  Opposite  the 
outer  entrance  he  made  another  gateway  (jrpoirvXov)  with 
three  gates,  the  largest  and  loftiest  in  the  middle.  These 
caught  the  rays  of  the  rising  sun,  like  the  outer  gateway. 
The  church  itself  {va6<;,  ^a(TLX.eio<i  oIko<;,  to?  av  /SactXt?)  was 
surrounded  with  porticoes  {crroai)  on  both  sides.  In  the 
church  the  holy  place  {dva-iaa-Ty'jpiov)  was  partitioned  off  by 
beautifully  wrought  wooden  screens  of  lattice-work,^  to  the 
admiration  of  spectators.  He  made  the  pavement  of  marble, 
and  on  each  side  he  constructed  chambers  and  exedrai  for 
various  hieratic  purposes  of  purification,  baptism,  etc. 

The  analogy  of  this  contemporary  church  at  Tyre  not 
merely  shows  what  was  the  arrangement  and  appearance  of 
the  Laodicean  buildings,  but  also  proves  that  the  same  type 
was  widely  accepted  in  the  Christian  world  of  the  fourth 
century.  Another  example  has  recently  been  uncovered  in 
the  excavations   conducted   by   Dr.  Wiegand   at  Miletus.^ 

*  ffToats  Kioffir  irayraxiOfy  ixaipofitvais '  Su  rh  fieca  Sta<ppdyixa(n  rols  airh 
^vKov  StKTvtrroTs  4s  rb  arvfifxtrpoy  tJ/coucti  /x-ffKovs  vepiK\fiaas. 

^To7s  dirb  |vA.ov  ir€pt€(ppaTTe  Siktvois,  els  &Kpov  iyrtx""^  Xtirovpyias  i^r\(TKr\- 
fterois,  is  Bavfidariov  rots  dpiixri  Trapex^^"  t^jv  Bear. 

'* Sechster  vorldufige  Bericht,  p.  28  ff.  (Berlin,  igo8;  Anhang  zu  den 
Abhandl.  d.  Akad.). 


348  XII.   The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

Here  also  the  Propylon  leads  to  an  atrium  of  the  usual  form  ; 
and  through  the  atrium  one  enters  the  church  (which  has 
the  form  of  a  basilica).  A  variety  of  other  buildings  are 
grouped  closely  around,  forming  one  single  complex  struc- 
ture. The  entrance  is  from  the  west,  not  from  the  east,  as 
at  Tyre. 

There  is,  therefore,  no  doubt  as  to  the  character  of 
Eugenius's  constructions.  The  whole  was  surrounded  by  an 
enclosing  wall  or  peribolos.  This  wall  is  implied  by  the 
entrance  gateway  {irpoTrvXov),  and  is  summed  up  among  the 
works  of  masonry,  which  are  comprehensively  mentioned  at 
the  end  of  the  list.  The  enclosure  was  entered  by  a  gateway, 
which  admitted  to  an  open  space  in  which  there  were  at  least 
two  atriums  or  square  spaces  open  to  the  sky  and  surrounded 
by  porticoes.  The  church  also  was  bordered  by  porticoes. 
There  was  a  water-tank  instead  of  the  fountains  of  the 
Tyrian  church.  The  church  and  perhaps  the  atria  were  de- 
corated with  paintings.  There  remain  the  Kevrrjaei^,  a  word 
not  elsewhere  quoted  in  the  technical  sense  here  employed. 
There  can,  however,  be  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Calder  is  right  in 
taking  the  word  to  denote  carved  work,  made  by  piercing 
holes  in  wood.  I  should  unhesitatingly  identify  them  with 
the  lattice-work  screens,  which  were  used  at  Tyre  both  in  the 
church  and  in  the  atrium  :  see  also  No.  1 1. 

Eusebius  in  his  panegyric  makes  no  reference  to  the 
municipal  side  of  this  great  work.  He  regards  it  as  in- 
tended for  the  faithful  alone,  and  speaks  only  of  its  ecclesi- 
astical purpose.  The  pagan  strangers  look  from  outside,  and 
the  hope  is  entertained  that  the  interior  splendour  may  allure 
them  to  qualify  for  entrance.  But  it  is  clear  that  these  great 
structures  were  intended  to  be  a  centre  of  social  life  for 
the  faithful ;  and,  as  the  cities  became  entirely  Christianised, 


in  the  Fourth  Century  349 

the  church  buildings  formed  the  centre  of  city  life  gener- 
ally.i 

This  architectural  enterprise  must  have  absorbed  all  the 
energy  of  Bishop  Eugenius  for  the  twenty-five  years  of  his 
episcopate,  and  was  perhaps  the  reason  why  he  did  not 
attend  the  Council  of  Nicaea  in  A.D.  325  (though  the  situation 
of  Laodicea  on  the  great  road  made  it  easier  for  him  to  at- 
tend than  it  was  for  such  distant  bishops  as  those  of  Barata, 
Isaura,  Vasada,  and  others  in  Pisidia  and  Lycaonia).  It  was 
necessary  for  him  to  find  the  workmen  and  the  money, 
as  well  as  to  exercise  constant  supervision  over  the  work. 
The  well-known  letter  of  Gregory  to  Amphilochius  about  the 
much  smaller  building  which  he  intended  to  erect  at  Nyssa  ^ 
shows  how  much  depended  on  the  bishop  in  such  a  case. 

In  later  life  Julius  Eugenius,  according  to  the  old  Phrygian 
custom,  proceeded  to  prepare  his  own  grave  and  sepulchral 
monument.  It  consisted  oi  pelta  and  a  sarcophagus.  The 
curious  term  pelta  is  frequently  used  in  Lycaonian,  Pisidian 
and  Phrygian  epitaphs.  It  is  probably  a  native  word  (used 
as  a  neuter,  ireXrov,  in  Greek) ;  and  is  explained  with  high 
probability  by  Keil  in  Hermes^  1908,  p.  551,  as  denoting  a 
palisade  or  partition  surrounding  the  plot  of  ground  on 
which  the  sarcophagus  was  placed,  and  which  was  the 
property  of  the  maker  of  the  tomb.  The  palisade  was,  ac- 
cording to  Keil,  composed  of  staves — (Sopara) ;  and  we  are 
reminded  of  the  screens  in  churches  of  that  period,  on  which 
see  especially  No.  11.  Swch.  pelta,  originally  wooden,  were 
likely  to  be  made  also  of  stone,  and  to  retain  the  old  name. 

1  See  above,  p.  153  ff. 

''It  is  translated  and  commented  on  by  Bruno  Keil  in  Strzygowski's 
Kleinasien  ein  Neuland  der  Kunstgeschichte,  p.  77  f.  This  churcii  was  only  a 
martyrion  or  memorial  of  a  martyr ;  and  was  a  single  small  church  of  the 
usual  memorion  type. 


350  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

Within  the  palisade  there  was  probably  a  large  basis  or 
sub-structure  on  which  the  sarcophagus  was  placed  :  the  sub- 
structure is  called  in  West- Phrygian  epitaphs  by  various 
names  indicating  the  whole  or  parts.^ 

Following  the  example  of  St.  Avircius  Marcellus,  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  earlier,  Eugenius  caused  to  be  engraved  on 
his  sarcophagus  a  record  of  his  life,  and  this  record  has  been 
revealed  by  Mr.  Calder's  important  discovery.  Contrary  to 
the  usual  custom,  the  bishop  makes  no  mention  of  his  immed- 
iate family  except  in  the  vague  general  phrase  of  the  conclu- 
sion (which  shows  that  he  had  children).  He  mentions  his 
wife  at  the  beginning  in  such  a  way  as  to  suggest  that  her 
noble  birth  was  a  cause  of  pride  to  him  ;  but  he  does  not  say 
that  she  was  to  be  buried  in  the  same  grave.  Possibly,  she 
was  already  dead  and  buried  at  Pisidian  Antioch,  the  city  to 
which  her  family  probably  belonged.  The  bishop's  attention, 
however,  was  fully  occupied  in  the  task  of  compressing  into 
the  brief  limits  of  an  epitaph  the  account  of  his  own  career ; 
and  we  must  be  grateful  to  him  for  bequeathing  so  note- 
worthy a  record  of  this  critical  period,  which  furnishes  strik- 
ing confirmation  of  Eusebius's  historical  sense  in  selecting 
for  record  the  typical  facts  and  processes  of  the  time. 

It  is  clear  that  Eugenius  was  a  bishop  of  the  fully  de- 
veloped monarchical  type,  head  of  the  Laodicean  Church, 
controller  of  its  finance,  director  of  its  work,  speaking  in  its 
name.  He  rebuilt  the  old  Church,  as  he  says ;  but  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  he  employed  all  the  resources  of  the  local 
Church,  as  well  as  his  own,  for  this  end.  The  organisation 
of  each  city-Church  in  Lycaonia  must  therefore  be  under- 
stood as  completed  on  the  same  type  at  this  time.     Yet  he 

'^oepiKdv,  <nry/c/joi/(TTO>',  ypilo\.,  etc.  (Cities  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  ii,, 
P-  367). 


in  the  Fourth  Century  351 

uses  the  old  native  formula  of  epitaph,  not  a  new  Christian 
style.  As  he  made  a  point  of  retiring  (<x7roi»Sacra9  aircCKKa- 
yrjvac)  from  service  as  soon  as  the  law  was  relaxed  in  3 1 3  by 
the  last  edict  of  Maximian,  and  as  he  resided  only  a  short 
time  in  Laodicea  before  he  was  made  bishop,  his  elevation  is 
not  likely  to  have  been  later  than  316.  Apparently,  his 
sufferings  and  his  rank  caused  him  to  be  selected  without 
passing  through  the  lower  orders.  His  twenty-fifth  year  of 
office,  then,  was  A.D.  340  or  earlier. 

III.  While  it  is  impossible  here  to  enter  on  the  vexed 
question  of  the  relation  between  bishops  and  presbyters — 
nor  is  the  writer  qualified  to  do  so — it  is  equally  impossible 
to  ignore  the  fact  that  these  inscriptions  throw  some  light  on 
the  character  of  the  presbyterate  in  the  fourth  century,  and 
that  the  information  serves  to  complete  in  some  ways  the 
accepted  views.  I  may  take  Dr.  Hatch's  article,  "  Priest," 
in  the  Dictionary  of  Christian  Antiquities,  ii.,  1700  ff.,  as  a 
fair  specimen  of  those  views  :  to  the  effect  that  where  the 
bishop  existed  he  was  from  the  first  the  manager  of  the 
Church  finance  and  custodian  of  the  Church  funds,  and  that 
through  this  and  other  functions  he  gradually  became,  first 
of  all,  president  of  the  whole  body  of  Church  officials,  as 
primus  inter  pares  o{  the  presbyteroi ;  and  thereafter  ruling 
and  monarchical  bishop  ;  that  "  by  the  beginning  of  the 
third  century  the  organisation  of  almost  all  Churches  had 
begun  to  conform  to  a  single  type,  bishop,  presbyters 
and  deacons,"  though  '*  in  some  places  the  older  organisation 
lingered  on "  through  the  third  centuiy ;  and  that  "  the 
functions  of  the  presbyterate  in  this  fully  organised  and 
generally  accepted  type  may  be  mainly  grouped  according 
as  they  relate  (i)  to  discipline,  (2)  to  the  sacraments,  (3)  to 
teaching,  (4)  to  benediction  ". 


352  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

The  most  important  of  the  inscriptions  relating  to  the 
duties  of  the  presbyter  in  Lycaonia  is 

2.  Alkaran,  near  Nova  Isaura  (R.  in  Journal  of  Hellenic 
Studies,  1902,  p.  167) : — 

Helper  of  widows,  of  orphans,  of  strangers,  of  the  poor, 
[Nestor  ?  son  of  Nestor  ?],  presbyter  of  the  sacred  ex- 
penditure: i(n)  (remembrance).^ 
This  epitaph  may  be  assigned  with  much  confidence  to  the  lat- 
ter part  of  the  fourth  century,  but  the  earlier  part  of  the  fifth 
is  possible.  The  disuse  of  the  older  form  of  epitaph  prohibits 
an  earlier  date.  The  individual  characterisation  and  full 
description  of  the  deceased  is  unfavourable  to  a  later  date. 
There  is  nothing  of  a  stereotyped  and  formulated  character. 
It  reads  like  the  free  expression  of  an  individual  mind,  and 
formulae  were  likely  to  grow  out  of  this  expression  in  subse- 
quent time. 

The  preceding  sentence  was  printed  in  the  Expositor, 
December,  1905,  p.  445.  In  1908  I  observed  a  remarkable 
confirmation  of  it  in  the  opening  of  the  Acta  Sanctorum 
Anthousae  Athanasii,  etc., ^  where  the  description  here  given 
of  the  presbyter  is  caught  up  and  applied  to  Athanasius, 
Bishop  of  Tarsus,  who  is  called  "  the  protector  of  orphans, 
the  champion  of  widows,  the  help  of  the  oppressed,  and  the 
harbour  of  the  storm-tossed  ".^ 

The  words  of  the  Acta  are  only  a  turgid  variation  of  the 
terms  used  in  the  epitaph  :  the  four  classes  of  persons  aided 

^  XW^'"  op^avSiv  \X^va)v  raXaiJjrcipcov  hpuyyhs  [JSIeffrup  ?  Sis  ?  ],  irpe(rfivTe[p]of 
rciv  l[(pS>v  iLvaK(t)]ix6.Ta>v  n-x-  The  name  of  the  deceased  is  supplied  conjectur 
ally,  to  show  the  construction. 

^Analecta  Bolland.,  xii.,  lo  fF.  (ed,  Usener),  a  longer  and  earlier  form  ;  Acta 
Sand.,  August,  iv.,  499  f.,  a  shorter  but  later  form  of  the  Acta. 

^6p<pava>i/     avTiXifirTcep,    XW'^"    vTTfpa.(nri<rri\i,    Karairovov^ivwi/    $ori06s,    Kal 


in  the  Fourth  Century  353 

by  the  church  officer  remain,  orphans,  widows,  strangers  and 
wretched  ;  but  in  respect  of  each  class  a  special  epithet  is 
applied  to  the  official,  and  "  strangers "  are  fantastically 
called  "  storm-tossed,"  the  "  wretched  "  are  styled  "  the  op- 
pressed ".  It  is  possible  that  the  words  of  the  epitaph  are 
taken  from  some  religious  work  of  the  fourth  century  ;  and  that 
the  expression  became  customary  in  the  south-eastern  part  of 
Anatolia,^  and  thus  came  to  be  known  both  to  the  composer 
of  this  epitaph  and  to  the  author  of  the  Acta?-  But  at  least 
it  is  evident  that  the  epitaph  gives  the  simple  and  early  form, 
while  the  expression  used  in  the  Acta  is  later  in  date  and 
pedantic  in  phraseology. 

In  this  inscription  the  Presbyter  is  described  as  dispenser 
of  charity  and  hospitality,  which  implies  control  of  the  funds 
for  those  purposes.  If  the  restoration  of  the  conclusion  be 
accepted,  he  was  in  control  of  the  entire  finance  ot  the 
Church.  Yet  this  duty  is  supposed  to  have  been  the  most 
characteristic  and  determining  function  of  the  bishop's 
office. 

The  only  other  restoration  that  seems  possible  at  the  end 
is  that  which  Professor  Cumont  suggested  at  the  time  when 

^  The  verb  connected  with  avTi\'fiirTup  was  used  in  this  region  :  see  No.  43. 

^  The  scene  of  the  Acta  lies  in  this  Province.  The  time  is  given  as  the 
reign  of  Valerian,  when  Cilicia,  Isauria  and  Lycaonia  formed  the  Province 
called  the  "  Three  Eparchise  "  (p.  332) :  Anthousa  belonged  to  Seleucia  of 
Isauria,  yet  her  two  Christian  slaves  were  tried  and  suffered  at  Tarsus  of 
Cilicia,  metropolis  of  the  whole  Province.  This  seems  so  strange  to  the 
author  of  the  earlier  Acta,  that  he  omitted  the  specification  of  Anthousa's 
city  (which,  however,  is  retained  in  the  later  Acta  and  in  the  Menologia,  and 
even  in  §  4  of  the  earlier  Acta).  This  author  wrote  much  later  than  a.d.  295, 
when  Cilicia  was  disjoined  by  Diocletian  from  Isauria.  Usener,  ignoring  the 
provincial  iacts,  maintains  in  his  edition  that  Anthousa  belonged  to  Tarsus ; 
his  sole  reason  is  that  she  saw  Athanasius,  Bishop  of  Tarsus ;  but  a  journey 
was  needed  before  they  met.  He  rightly  observed  that  the  longer  Acta, 
which  he  published,  are  older  than  the  shorter  Acta. 

23 


354  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

I  found  the  inscription,  tSuv  i[€pwv  Trpayjfidrav ;  he  compared 
the  words  applied  in  Apostol.  Const.,  ii.,  35,  to  the  priest,  h(.ov- 
K7)TT}<;  ro)v  eKKkr^aiaa'TLKOiv  TrpayfiaTfop.  But  this  seems  to 
require  in  the  inscription  the  use  of  a  preposition  eTrt,  and 
the  longer  word  suits  the  large  gap  better.  Moreover,  the 
reading  "expenditure"  is,  perhaps,  demanded  by  the  cir- 
cumstances here :  the  last  words  furnish  the  explanation  for 
the  opening  words.  The  deceased  presbyter  was  the  helper 
of  widows,  etc.,  because  he  was  in  charge  of  the  expenditure 
of  the  Church.  It  is  therefore  clear  that  the  word  lepeov  in 
the  one  case  is  practically  equivalent  to  iKKXrjcrcaa-Ttfcwv  in 
the  other:  "the  expenses  of  the  Ekklesia"  are  "the  sacred 
expenses  ". 

The  word  "strangers"  is  a  pure  restoration;  but  some 
word  is  required  by  the  context,  and  this  word  almost  im- 
poses itself  as  necessary.  The  duty  of  hospitality  was 
strenuously  insisted  on  in  the  early  Church  from  the  very 
beginning.^  Charity  and  hospitality  formed  a  most  im- 
portant part  of  the  ecclesiastical  establishment. 

The  restoration  "strangers"  is  further  confirmed  by  in- 
scription No.  3.  Moreover,  we  remember  the  great  founda- 
tion built  by  Basil  near  Caesarea,^  including  almshouse, 
hospital  and  place  of  entertainment  for  strangers. 

In  the  village  church  where  this  presbyter  officiated, 
we  find  ourselves  in  the  same  surroundings  as  those  which 
Basil  had  in  his  mind.  The  Church  is  the  centre  of  practi- 
cal work  in  social  organisation,  charity  and  hospitality,  the 
Church  of  the  people. 

In  early  documents  the  duty  of  presbyters  to  take  care  of 
widows  is  strongly  emphasised  :  Dr.  Hatch  quotes  Polycarp, 

1  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  pp.  ii8,  385. 
'  See  above,  p.  154. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  355 

ad  Phil.,  4  ;  Epist.  Clement,  ad  Jacob.,  8  ;  Apost.  Const.^  iv.,  2} 
Hermas  rather  associates  this  duty  with  bishops,  and  so 
does  Ignatius,  ad  Polyc,  4. 

The  question  arises  whether  this  epitaph  can  be  supposed 
to  describe  one  of  a  body  of  presbyters,  on  the  theory  that 
the  various  ecclesiastical  duties  were  apportioned  among 
them.2  This  view  seems  to  be  impossible,  as  there  is  no 
reason  to  think  that  the  various  functions  of  the  presbyterate 
were  ever  divided  in  this  strict  businesslike  way  among  the 
members  of  the  body,  or  that  one  presbyter  superintended 
finance,  charity  and  hospitality,  another  taught,  a  third  dis- 
pensed the  sacraments,  and  so  on.  Division  of  duties  inter 
pares  was  voluntary,  not  permanent  and  official. 

It  is  preferable  to  suppose  that  the  deceased  is  described 
as  having  discharged  certain  of  the  duties  of  his  office  with 
special  zeal  and  success,  without  implying  that  he  did  not 
also  discharge  all  the  other  functions  of  the  presbyterate. 
We  must  remember  that  in  the  many  village  churches  there 
was  no  bishop,  but  only  a  presbyter  in  charge ;  and  this 
presbyter  necessarily  exercised  all  the  powers  which  in  a 
great  city  church  were  exercised  by  a  bishop  and  presbyters. 
In  that  view  the  village  presbyter  was  simply  the  village 
priest ;  and,  as  we  shall  find  in  other  epitaphs,  he  was  often 
called  hiereus.  Lycaonia  was  covered  with  innumerable 
villages,  and  the  remains  show  that  in  each  village  there 
must  have  been  at  least  one  church,  which  needed  its  priest. 
In  a  small  city  like  Barata  there  were  quite  thirty 
churches.  But  in  the  entire  Province  of  Lycaonia  there 
were  only  eighteen  bishops.     The  presbyter  or  hiereus  of 

^  The  second  and  third  authorities  may  be  called  early  from  our  point  of 
Tiew  in  the  present  article. 

*  Formerly  I  inclined  to  this  view.  Expositor,  Dec,  1905,  p.  447  fF. 


356  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

the  village  church  had,  therefore,  to  discharge  all  the  various 
duties  which  the  Orthodox  Church  regarded  as  its  sphere  of 
work :  he  managed  finance,  charity,  hospitality,  as  well  as 
the  strictly  ecclesiastical  and  hieratic  functions  ;  and  in  his 
epitaph  it  is  those  social  duties  that  are  emphasised.  They 
were  what  endeared  the  presbyter  to  his  people  and  made 
him  live  in  their  memory.  The  Orthodox  and  Imperial 
Church  was  still  the  Church  of  the  people.^ 

That  a  presbyter  administered  a  village  church  in  this 
way  in  the  fourth  century  is  proved  by  a  reference  in  Basil's 
letter  188,  10,  a  difficult  passage  which  is  discussed  at  length 
in  my  paper  on  Pisidia  in  Annual  of  the  British  School  of 
Athens,  1902,  p.  266  f.  It  seems  in  this  passage  to  be  pre- 
supposed that  in  the  unnamed  village  under  discussion 
there  was  only  one  presbyter,  Longinus.  When  the  district 
was  in  A.D.  371  transferred  and  placed  under  Iconium, 
Amphilochius  the  metropolitan  of  Iconium  found  that 
Longinus  (who  had  been  favoured  by  the  metropolitan  of 
Isaura,  his  former  head)  was  unworthy ;  and  ordered  another 
presbyter,  Cyriacus  of  the  village  Mindana,  to  perform  his 
duties.^ 

Again  in  letter  54  Basil,  addressing  his  Chorepiscopi 
(village-bishops  or  country  bishops)  reprimands  them  for 
admitting,  without  proper  examination  and  without  reference 
to  himself,  numbers  of  persons  into  the  lower  order  of  the 
ministry.  This  practice  they  had  carried  so  far  that  in 
every  village  there  were  many  ministers,^  but  often  not  one 

1  See  above,  p.  152. 

^Professor  Holl,  Amphilochius,  p,  20  (Berlin,  1906),  comes  to  different 
conclusions.  He  quotes  only  my  Historical  Geography,  not  my  later  article, 
on  the  topography ;  and  topography  is  the  key  to  the  whole  incident. 

'These  ministers  are  defined  as  subdeacons  in  the  Benedictine  annotation. 
The  priestly  order   (tepoTfioi/,  rdyfia  rwv  UpartKuiv)  is  usually  extended  by 


in  the  Fourth  Century  357 

single  person  worthy  to  perform  the  service  of  the  altars. 
He  requires  that  a  strict  investigation  be  made  as  to  the 
ordination  and  the  personal  character  of  the  ministers  in 
every  village,  and  the  unworthy  relegated  among  the  laity. 

It  seems  therefore  that  in  this  region  of  Asia  Minor  a 
village  church  usually  had  a  presbyter  with  deacons  and 
subdeacons.  The  presbyter  evidently  must  have  stood  in 
the  same  relation  to  these  subordinate  clergy,  as  the  bishop 
did  to  his  presbyters  and  deacons  in  the  church  of  a  city ; 
and  similar  functions  in  regard  to  finance  fell  to  the  lot  of 
the  bishop  in  a  city  and  the  presbyter  in  a  village. 

The  relation  of  the  presbyter  in  a  village  to  a  village-bishop 
or  country-bishop  (;j^&)/je7rt(r/co7ro9)  remains  uncertain,  as  the 
exact  position  of  the  latter  is  not  strictly  defined.  There 
was  not  a  country-bishop  in  every  village.  Basil  had  fifty 
country-bishops  under  him;  but  in  the  vast  disocese  of 
Caesarea  there  must  have  been  hundreds  of  villages.  It 
seems  from  his  letter  104  that  a  village-bishop  had  to 
look  after  more  villages  than  one. 

The  ill-defined  relations  between  the  country-bishops  and 
the  other  clergy,  superior  and  inferior  (as  attested  by  Basil, 
Ep.  104),  were  probably  the  cause  of  their  suppression.  Basil 
mentions,  Ep.  190,  that  there  was  a  tendency  to  do  away 
with  them  ^  already  in  his  time. 

Now  the  question  arises  whether  there  was  not  some 
special  term  to  denote  a  church  which  was  administered  by 

Basil  to  include  these  lower  orders,  though  the  synod  of  Laodicea  distin- 
guished them  (according  to  the  Benedictine  note),  and  though  Basil  him- 
self defines  roihs  lepaifMivovs  as  presbyters  and  deacons  (excluding  subdeacons) 
in  his  letter  104.  He  mentions  in  letter  54  that  fear  of  the  conscription  was 
driving  many  persons  into  the  ministry. 

^The  bishops  of  small  cities  or  large  villages,  whose  suppression  he  there 
speaks  of,  are  probably  xw^eTiV/fOTrot. 


35^  XII.   The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

a  presbyter,  as  distinguished  from  a  church  which  was  ad- 
ministered by  a  bishop  and  a  board  of  presbyters.  On  a  later 
inscription  I  shall  advance  reasons  for  thinking  that  such  a 
church  was  sometimes  c2i\\Qdi2.  presbyterion. 

This  epitaph  and  No,  4  seem  to  have  arisen  in  the  same 
surroundings  of  thought  and  custom  in  which  chapter  35 
of  the  Apostolic  Constitutions,  ii.,  grew  up ;  but  the  latter 
is  expressed  in  more  formed  and  almost  stereotyped  phrase- 
ology. "  Thus  will  your  righteousness  surpass  [that  of  the 
scribes  and  Pharisees],  if  you  take  greater  forethought  than 
they  for  the  priests  and  the  orphans  and  the  widows :  as  it 
is  written,  He  hath  scattered  abroad :  He  hath  given  to  the 
poor.^  .  .  .  For  thy  duty  is  to  give,  and  the  priest's  duty  to 
manage,  as  manager  and  administrator  of  the  ecclesiastical 
things." 

The  term  "  ecclesiastical "  seems  to  indicate  a  more  ad- 
vanced state  of  organisation  than  the  word  "  sacred,"  which 
is  used  in  the  corresponding  part  of  the  epitaph.  Moreover 
the  manager  {oIkovoijm^)  is  in  the  next  sentence  of  the  Con- 
stitutions said  to  be  the  bishop,  while  in  the  epitaph  the 
presbyter  is  the  administrator.  The  title  manager  (oIkovo/xos:) 
is  used  several  times  in  the  Lycaonian  inscriptions  to  indicate 
apparently  a  presbyter,  not  a  bishop — one  who  was  charged 
specially  with  the  duty  of  managing  the  money  of  the 
church  devoted  to  charitable  purposes.  Thus  it  seems  to  be 
implied  that  in  each  Lycaonian  church  there  was  a  certain 
fund,  contributed  by  the  congregation,  as  the  Constitutions 
state,  and  distributed  to  widows,  orphans  and  poor  (perhaps 
also  to  strangers  in  the  form  of  entertainment)  by  the  bishop 
or  presbyter,  who  was  entitled  Oikonomos  in  performance  of 
this  duty.     When  the  Lycaonian  inscriptions  speak  of  the 

'  roi%  -Kfyrjaiv :  in  the  prose  epitaph  raXair^pwv  is  the  word. 


in  the  Fourth  Ccntiwy  359 

presbyter  in  relations  in  which  the  Apostolic  Constitutions 
would  probably  mention  a  bishop,  we  must  understand  that 
the  idea  in  the  minds  of  every  one  is  "  priest "  :  bishop  and 
presbyter  alike  are  priests.  In  the  Constitutions,  ii.,  30,  is 
given  an  elaborate  statement  of  the  relation  of  the  deacon 
to  the  bishop ;  exactly  the  same  might  be  said  about  the 
relation  between  the  deacon  and  the  presbyter :  "  Let  the 
Bishop  be  honoured  by  you  in  the  place  of  God,  and  the 
Deacon  as  his  prophet,  for  as  Christ  without  the  Father 
does  nothing,  so  neither  does  the  Deacon  without  the  Bishop  ; 
and  as  Son  is  not  without  Father,  so  neither  is  Deacon 
without  the  Bishop  ;  and  as  Son  is  subordinate  ^  to  Father, 
so  also  every  Deacon  to  the  Bishop ;  and  as  the  Son  is 
messenger  and  prophet  of  the  Father,  so  also  the  Deacon 
is  messenger  and  prophet  of  the  Bishop".  Moreover,  in 
the  Constitutions,  ii.,  19,  the  name  bishop  is  roughly  used 
in  a  still  wider  generic  fashion,  to  include  the  entire  clergy 
as  distinguished  from  the  laity :  "  Listen,  ye  bishops ;  and 
listen,  ye  laymen  ",  In  this  and  in  the  following  chapter  20, 
it  is  clear  that  the  generic  distinction  between  guide  and 
guided,  shepherd  and  sheep,  is|in  the  writer's  mind,  and  that 
the  clergy,  higher  or  lower,  are  the  shepherd,  but  only  the  head 
and  representative  of  the  clergy  is  named  on  behalf  of  the 
whole  order.  Where  the  bishop  is,  the  rest  of  the  clergy  does 
not  act  except  as  ministers  of  his  will  and  policy ;  but,  as 
doing  so,  they  share  in  his  honourable  position  and  dignity  ; 
and  where  he  is  not,  the  next  in  order  acts  for  him,  and  is 
the  father  and  shepherd  of  the  people. 

"  Let  the  laymen  honour  the  shepherd,  who  is  good,  love 
him,  fear  him  as  father,  as  lord,  as  high  priest  of  God,  as 

^  vir6xp(os ;    in   No.  4,    line  6,  the  presbyter   is    Onovpy6[s]  to  the  bishop 
(unless  the  deacon  is  really  meant :  see  commentary). 


360  XII.   The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

teacher  of  piety.  ...  In  like  manner  let  the  bishop  love  the 
laity  as  his  children."  One  feels  that  the  Lycaonian  epitaphs 
might  use  the  same  words  about  the  presbyter. 

Here  it  seems  probable  that  in  the  Constitutions  the  re- 
lation of  deacon  and  bishop  is  generically  the  relation  of 
deacon  to  the  higher  order  of  the  ministry,  and  practically 
includes  the  relation  of  deacon  to  presbyter.  I  do  not 
mean  that  bishop  and  presbyter  were  the  same  thing ;  but 
that  the  term  bishop  could  still  be  used,  and  was  sometimes 
used,  as  a  generic  term  to  include  presbyters  and  bishops. 

3.  Alkaran  near  Nova  Isaura. 

Koulas  to  Solon,  a  stranger,  i(n)  r(emembrance). 

This  is  a  practical  example  of  the  last  duty  of  hospitality 
in  ancient  usage.  The  stranger  received  the  honour  of  a 
tomb  from  his  host.  There  is  no  proof  that  the  inscription 
is  Christian  or  ecclesiastical ;  but  in  the  late  period  and  in 
the  circumstances  of  that  period,  both  are  probably  true. 

4.  Dinek  near  Nova  Isaura. ^ 

(Tr^ixaTt  Tft)8']  iveirco  irapiovrt  ^[.  .  .]oe  'yaipeLv        I 
'X]povoL^  [7r]a[A,a.]io[i]9  lepe\^vev]  dpo[yp^riq        4 
waxTL  7rapep'x^o/ui]evoL<;  '    crv  8e  p,oi  ')(apL'jaio  irpoaeXdcop,  2 
Kal  T€p(f)]0€l<;  [eTrJeecrcrt,  fxadcov  Ze  aa<p(o^  on  Nearcop    3 
5   crepuvo^  TrpecrySuJrepoi?,  fierpUov  ')(7jpSyv  €7rapcoy6<;  "  5 

av^Tap  [o8e  iv^Kparirji;  6  SiaKOvo^;  ia6Xb<i  VTTOvpyo'i 
ri/jLeT€p]r](;  dr)aavp6<i  eVa/a^tr;?  eVtA-e/CTo? 
So['y//aT09  ov^paviov  6  BiSdaKoXof;  rjiOeoiatv. 
Kal  ao(f)o^  [eV  pepoTvliea-crL  hiKdaTro\o<;  eTrXero  Trcaroi; 
10  yye/j,6crtv  ^[vveSpeve  r    "   i^aaao  8e  (juvpia  ('pvXa. 
Kal  p,vi]cr$el^  (piXorrjTOf;  e/A['>)9  Ke8v]ri'i  ao(}>i7]<i  re 
(r7re[v]cr€v  i/uol  crrevd'x^Qyv  dnro  crft)[^aT09,  ep^nraXi  'yaipuiv 
rifjbeTepri<i  <ptXLr]<i  fjbep,i'rjp,€v[o<;  -ij/xaT^a  (^irayiravTa 
TTjv  a€/j,vr}v  ^t,Xa8€X(f)bi'  C    .   .   .  o  7r[apaK0CT]tv  apia-rrjv 

1 1  have  received  much  help  from  Mr.  J.  G.  C.  Anderson,  Professor  Sanday, 
and  Professor  T.  Callander  ;  and  to  them  the  best  restorations  are  due.  Line 
I  is  most  uncertain.  Perhaps  restore  only  Tavra  at  the  beginning,  and  five 
syllahles  after  xaipfiv. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  361 

1 5   TrjXecfiLSrjv  Ma^/j,etv  [rj  a-e/jLVOTaT^rf  l€[p]€[i,]Stv 
Trtarrjv  ivKpaTLVi  oIkovoixov,  e[«  re  'jrpov\oLa<i 
fivr}/J,[ocrvv}r)<;  fM[vT]]/jLr)<i  [rje  %a/3ti/  [d]epd'7r€vd[  re  Xpcarov 

6^'  apiaro^  iv  vp,vol<t 
Telcrev  diro  cr(f)eT[ep 

20  aja/uLara  [«]a\a  [^(f}p]daovai  Kal  i(r<rofiivoia[^c  irvdeaOai 

I  described  in  the  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1905,  p.  349, 
the  circumstances  which  made  my  copy  in  1901  defecti\e 
and  unsatisfactory.  In  1905  I  saw  the  inscription  again, 
but  it  had  suffered  much  in  the  interval.  My  eyes  are  not 
sensitive  to  very  delicate  effects,  and  I  should  be  accom- 
panied on  another  visit  by  some  persons  with  sharper  eses 
for  faint  lines.  This  stone  also  lies  far  away  from  the  press- 
ing needs  of  exploration,  and  would  require  two  long  days 
of  travelling  and  one  day  of  work  to  copy  it  properly.  Such 
conditions  add  immensely  to  the  cost  of  a  single  inscription, 
but  this  one  would  reward  the  expense.  The  stone  is 
broken  down  the  middle,  and  on  the  right  and  left  sides, 
but  complete  at  top  and  bottom.  The  two  halves  lie  separate, 
and  one  is  in  a  very  awkward  position  so  that  the  copier  can 
hardly  see  it  except  upside  down.  Only  a  facsimile  would 
be  sufficient  to  give  a  fair  idea  of  the  state  of  the  text,  as 
the  surface  is  often  broken  in  parts. 

I  have  never  known  an  inscription  in  which  so  ma-^.y 
letters  are  preserved,  yet  so  much  of  the  meaning  remains 
entirely  obscure,  and  restoration  is  so  difficult.  There 
seems  to  be  no  proper  connection  between  the  parts,  and 
thus  the  restorer  has  no  foundation  to  work  on.  Accordingly 
I  have  been  forced  at  last  to  the  hypothesis — almost  the 
last  refuge  of  despair — that  the  second  line  is  misplaced. 
The  first  line  is  engraved  on  the  square  capital  of  the  stone 
(which  is  shaped  like  an  ornate  altar).  Then  I  conjecture 
that    t'i>:    ioUowingf   seco»id  and  third  hexameters  were  en- 


362  XII.   The  Church  of  Lycaofiia 

graved  on  the  shaft  of  the  stone,  and  that  the  stone-cutter 
accideritally  omitted  the  fourth  hexameter.  Finding  his 
error  too  late,  he  engraved  the  omitted  words  on  the  re- 
treating face  between  the  first  line  and  the  second.  It  is 
not  a  rare  thing  to  find  words  thus  omitted  in  an  inscription 
and  added  at  the  side  or  the  end.  Where  the  inscription  is 
complete,  the  correct  order  can  easily  be  detected  (though 
some  strange  errors  have  been  made  in  publishing  inscrip- 
tions that  contain  such  misplaced  letters  or  words,  because 
the  editor  failed  to  notice  the  misplacement).  Here,  where 
the  inscription  is  incomplete,  and  where  there  are  lacunae 
both  at  beginning  and  end  of  every  line,  and  sometimes  also 
in  the  middle  of  the  lines,  the  difficulty  is  almost  insuperable, 
especially  as  the  hexameters  do  not  correspond  to  the 
lines  of  the  engraved  text.  Elsewhere  I  have  pointed  out 
more  than  once  that  the  engraver  of  such  epitaphs  generally 
had  a  written  copy  to  work  from.  Thus  it  comes  about 
that  the  misplaced  words  here  are  not  exactly  a  hexameter. 
There  is  generally  a  little  more  than  a  hexameter  in  each 
line  of  the  text. 

If  we  try  to  correct  the  misplacement,  the  meaning  of  the 
opening  lines  would  be  : — 

By  this  sign  (or  stone)  I  bid  the  passer  hail,  and  all  who 
go  by;    but  do  thou  show  me   favour,  approaching^ 
and  taking  pleasure  in  my  words  and  learning  clearly 
that  Nestor  in  old  times  was  priest  in  these  lands  [a 
revered  presbyjter,  the  help  of  virtuous  widows. 
A   salutation   to   the   passers-by   is   a  common    feature   in 
ancient  epitaphs :  it  was  sometimes  placed  at  the  end,  some- 
times at  the  beginning.     Such  salutations  were  taken  over 
from  pagan  custom  into  early  Christian  epitaphs.     In   the 
present  case  the  use  of  the  salutation  must  be  regarded  as  a 


in  the  Fourth  Century  363 


sign  of  comparatively  early  date.  The  salutation  was  evi- 
dently closely  connected  in  construction  with  the  following 
line  (line  3  on  the  stone). 

The  description  of  the  duties  and  position  of  Nestor  as 
presbyter,  and  several  other  points  of  interest  in  the  sequel, 
make  this  epitaph  an  important  document,  and  it  is  unfor- 
tunate that  a  good  deal  of  the  interpretation  has  to  rest  on 
conjectural  restoration : — 

that  Nestor  in  ancient  times  was  priest  in  these  cultivated 
lands,  a  revered  presbyter,  helper  of  virtuous  widows  ; 
moreover,  he  (was)  the  minister  of  continence,  excel- 
lent   subordinate    worker,    chosen    treasure   of     our 
Province,   the    teacher   of   the    heavenly   decree    to 
young  men  ;  and  he  was  a  trustworthy  judge  among 
men,  and  he  sat  among  the  governors,  and  a  thousand 
nations  know  this. 
Here,  as   in   the   previous    inscription,   the  stress  is  laid 
strongly  on  the  presbyter's  work  as  a  dispenser  of  charity. 
The  practical  side  of  the  Church's  work  is  dominant  in  the 
popular  estimation.     The  judicial  or  disciplinary  side  of  his 
work,  and  the  teaching  side,  are  also  strongly  emphasised  in 
lines  9,  8  and  6.     The  other  two  more  ritualistic  or  hier- 
atic sides  of  the  presbyter's  work  (as  enumerated  by    Dr. 
Hatch  in  the  passage  quoted  above),  relating  to  the  sacra- 
ments and  to  benediction,   seem  to  have  been  much   less 
regarded  in  the  Lycaonian  world  ;  they  may  be  supposed 
to  be  summed  up  in  the  verb  Upevev.     As  to  the  general  des- 
cription "  select  treasure,"  that  vague  expression  refers  rather 
to  his  popularity  in  the    Province :  Nestor,  like    Timothy, 
was  well  spoken  of  and  well  esteemed  in   Iconium  and    the 
whole  country.     The  word  "  deacon  "  in  line  6  would  natur- 
ally be  taken,  at  first  sight,  as  a    parenthetic  reference  to  a 


364  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

deacon  who  was  subordinate  minister  to  Nestor ;  but  I 
have  been  unable  to  work  this  into  a  satisfactory  interpreta- 
tion of  the  document.  I  take  the  two  expressions  o  8idKovo<i 
in  6  and  0  Bi8da-Ka\o<i  in  8  as  both  parts  of  the  description  of 
the  presbyter's  work,  understanding  that  the  former  is  not  used 
in  its  official  sense  but  as  defining  one  side  of  Nestor's 
duties  :  he  was  the  minister  of  self-restraint,  and  the  teacher 
of  the  divine  ordinance. 

We  notice  here  the  same  thought  that  appears  in  the 
opening  words  of  the  preceding  inscription.  The  priest  was 
the  helper  of  virtuous  widows,  and  dispenser  of  charity.  It 
is  important  to  find  that  he  is  described  as  both  presbyter 
and  /liereus^:  the  two  terms  are  therefore  synonymous.  The 
bishop  was  archiereus  (No.  27)>  ^^^  it  is  probably  to  the 
bishop  of  Nova  Isaura  that  Nestor  was  a  good  subordinate 
worker.  As  the  deacon  was  a  helper  and  subordinate  to  the 
presbyter,  so  the  presbyter  was  an  assistant  to  the  bishop. 

The  strong  expression  in  line  10  seems  to  imply  that  Nes- 
tor acted  as  assessor  or  associate  to  the  civil  officials  of  the 
Province  in  the  administration  of  justice  and  discipline;  and 
suggests  that  very  grave  powers  were  entrusted  to  the  pres- 
byters. Everywhere  we  are  struck  with  the  strength  of  the 
influence  which  the  Church  exercised  over  society. 

In  lines  11-13  we  pass  to  Nestor's  domestic  relations.  It 
is  clear  that  his  wife  made  the  tomb.  The  exact  restoration 
is  doubtful  and  difficult ;  but  the  meaning  seems  to  be  that 
Nestor,  as  he  thought  of  his  wife's  love  and  prudence,  de- 
parted sorrowing,  and  then  again  rejoicing  when  he  re- 
membered her  continuous  affection. 

Lines    14-16   describe   at    length   the   character   of    the 

'  The  term  lepevs  is  involved  in  the  verb  Upevev,  a  restoration >not  certain 
(letters  here  very  faint),  and  in  the  fem.  itp«(i)a)»/. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  365 

wife,  Mammeis,  daughter  of  Telephus.  The  expressions  are 
all  in  the  accusative,  except  that  [a-efivoraT]!]  Upetoiv  is  no- 
minative, which  I  have  tried  to  explain  by  using  the  relative 
and  understanding  the  verb  7)v.  In  this  description  she  ap- 
pears as  a  "trusty  dispenser  of  continence,"  as  Nestor  was  a 
minister  of  continence.  Extremely  important  is  the  rather 
bold  restoration  which  makes  her  "  most  holy  of  priestesses  ". 
The  reading  ie\_p]e(ov  seems  certain,  and,  on  account  of  the 
feminine  termination  preceding,  this  can  only  be  taken  as  a 
slip  of  the  engraver  for  Upetcov}  In  that  case  we  should  have 
a  clear  example  of  the  use  of  hiereia  in  the  sense  of  "  wife  of  a 
kiereus".  It  is  certain  that  in  Latin  documents  of  the  sixth 
century  and  later  presbytera  and  presbyterissa  were  used  in 
the  sense  of  "wife  of  a  presbyter,"  but  no  similar  example 
has  been  found  as  yet  in  Lycaonia,  except  that  in  No.  21 
hierissa  perhaps  means  the  wife  of  a  Christian  hiereus. 

A  restoration  like  "  handmaid  of  Christ "  ^  seems  to  be 
required :  similar  expressions  are  often  found  in  Lycaonian 
epitaphs  (see  No.  44  f.).  The  meaning  of  the  last  lines  seems 
to  be  that  Mammeis,  handmaid  of  Christ,  in  remembrance, 
made  the  tomb  and  honoured  the  dead;  and  that  certain 
persons  will  sing  beautiful  hymns,  for  posterity  also  to  learn. 
The  last  line  perhaps  refers  to  some  sort  of  service  for  the 
dead,  or  ritual  celebrated  at  the  grave :  in  a  Phrygian 
metrical  epitaph  a  relative  of  the  deceased  "  sends  up  holy 
hymns  ".^ 

In  lines  16,  17,  is  a  clear  proof  of  the  carelessness  of  the 
engraver.     The  text  .  .  .  ola<i  iMvr}iJLT]<i  fivrjfiri'i  re   X'^P''^   ^^ 

'  "  Descendant  of  priests  "  is  not  impossible ;  but  the  other  is  much  more 
satisfactory,  as  it  preserves  the  metre. 

2 The  nominative,  as  restored,  seems  to  point  to  a  verb  following;  depa- 
ir€vo[;/  'iTjffov]  also  suggests  itself. 

^See  Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Prov,,  p.  226  (Anderson;. 


366  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

unmistakably  a  poetical  working  up  of  the  formulae  evvota^ 
vaptv  and  fjbvrjfir)<i  p^a/341'  ^ ;  and  the  repetition  of  fj,vi]/Mr)<;  twice 
must  not  be  charged  against  the  composer,  but  undoubtedly 
against  the  engraver.  I  have  supposed  that  he  by  a  slip 
omitted  four  letters  in  the  first  /j,vr]fMT]<;,  which  in  the  copy 
supplied  to  him  was  fivrj/xoavvrj^i.     This  restores  the  metre. 

5.  On  a  stone  high  up  in  the  front  wall  of  an  early  Turkish 
khan,  on  the  left  hand  as  one  enters  the  gateway  in  the  im- 
portant village  of  Suwerek,  the  ancient  Psebila  ^  or  Pegella 
The  khan  is  a  very  fine  specimen  of  Seljuk  work,  and  part 
of  it  seemed  to  be  a  Byzantine  church,  on  one  of  whose 
capitals  was  the  dedication  in  letters  not  of  a  very  early 
period  :  "  The  vow  of  John  [and  of]  his  [household]".'  The 
building  is  well  worth  an  architect's  careful  study. 

Nestorios,  Presbyter,  lies  here,  who  shone  a  star  among 
the  Churches  of  God  *  [one  hexameter  and  a  half  lost : 
DJiomedes  lies  here.^ 

We  notice  here,  first  of  all,  the  reminiscence  of  Homer, 
"shone  like  a  star,"^  showing  that  the  composer  of  the 
epitaph  was  a  person  of  some  education.  But  far  more  im- 
portant is  the  unmistakable  reference  to  the  Stars  of  the 
Apocalypse.  The  Stars  were  held  in  the  hand  of  Him  who 
walked  in  the  midst  of  the  Churches,  symbolised  by  the 

1  Epitaphs  often  show  double,  sometimes  (as  here),  triple  cumulation. 

»  See  above,  p.  138. 

8  Other  restorations  of  the  missing  letters  after  'Iwivov  are  possible ;  but  the 
above  is  the  most  probable. 

*  l^effrSpios  vpffffivrepos  MdSf  K7re 
atrr^p  ts  evf\aixir€v  iv  iK\T)(rle(riy  Oeoto, 
The  V  before  0eoio  makes  the  metre  needlessly  bad.     It  was  impossible  to  get 
close  to  the  stone,  which  also  is  upside  down.     The  letters  are  too  faint  to 
permit  an  impression.     Hence  Professor  T.  Callander  and  I  both  failed  t« 
read  the  middle  part. 

*The  gap  ought  to  be  re-examined  :  the  stone  is  upside  down. 

^iurriip  ttt  iireKofiirei',  Iliad,  xix.,  381,  and  elsewhere. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  367 

golden  lampstands.  The  Stars  were  the  Angels  of  the 
Churches.  Nestorios,  then,  was  the  angel  who  shone  among 
the  Churches  of  God. 

The  verb  used  by  Homer,  airoXdiMireiv  (to  shine  forth), 
is  varied  in  this  epitaph  to  iv\dfnr€iv  (to  shine  in),  for  the 
evident  purpose  of  making  it  suit  better  the  scene  alluded  to 
in  the  Apocalypse. 

It  seems  also  highly  probable  that  the  six-rayed  rosette, 
which  is  so  common  an  ornament  on  Christian  gravestones 
in  Lycaonia,  may  have  been  understood  as  the  Star  of  the 
Church.  The  position  so  often  assigned  to  the  rosette  on 
those  stones,  balanced  symmetrically  against  a  more  or  less 
elaborately  ornate  cross,  seems  to  prove  that  it  had  a  mean- 
ing in  the  symbolic  ornamentation  of  Christian  stones.^  This 
is  not  at  all  inconsistent  with  the  suggestion,  No.  10,  that  it 
was  a  developed  form  of  the  monogram  of  I  and  X,  implying 
that  Jesus  Christ  was  the  Star  of  the  Church.  Rather  it 
seems  to  be  implied  that  the  presbyter  (bishop)  stands  to 
the  Church  in  the  same  relation  as  God  does,  a  very  similar 
stage  of  thought  to  that  which  appears  in  the  Apostolic 
Constitutions,  ii.,  30 :  see  the  quotations  given  above  on 
No.  2,  e.g.,  "  let  the  Bishop  be  honoured  by  you  in  the  place 
of  God  ". 

This  seems  to  corroborate  strongly  the  view  which  we 
have  already  stated  as  to  the  picture  of  the  office  of 
presbyter  given  in  the  Lycaonian  inscriptions,  and  perhaps 
justifies  us  in  speaking  even  more  positively  and  emphatically. 
The  term  presbyter  in  those  inscriptions  is  used  in  very  much 
the  same  sense  as  hiereus  and  episkopos.    The  presbyter  was 

^  It  was,  of  course,  used  also  as  an  ornament  on  pagan  stones;  practically 
every  Christian  symbol  was  previously  employed  by  pagans,  as  the  cross,  the 
vine-branch,  etc. ;  but  the  Christian  symbolism  turned  those  pagan  ornaments 
to  its  own  purposes. 


;68 


XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 


not  simply  one  of  a  board  of  elders  in  the  congregation ;  he 
was  the  head  and  priest  and  leader  of  the  local  Church.  The 
presbyter  administered  the  revenues  of  the  Church,  cared 
for  the  poor,  the  stranger,  the  widow  and  the  orphan,  and 
was  assisted  in  these  duties  by  the  deacon  his  subordinate. 

This  description  applies  to  the  country  churches.  A  city 
church  had  a  bishop  at  its  head,  and  there  was  doubtless  a 
board  of  presbyters  under  his  presidency.  What  relation 
there  was  between  these  presbyters  and  the  board  surround- 
ing the  bishop,  cannot  be  determined  from  the  inscriptions. 
But  probably  the  presbyters  of  the  country  churches  came 
into  the  city  to  sit  at  councils  where  the  bishop  presided. 
In  each  congregation  there  were  deacons  and  deaconesses, 
and  subdeacons,  also  perhaps  readers,  evangelists,  confessors, 
etc.  (the  last  very  rarely  mentioned  in  the  inscriptions). 

»  X  /     6.   Nevinne,  in  the   hills   above 

Laodicea  (T.  Callander). 

I,  Aur.  Eugenius,  son  of  Maxi- 

mus,   raised    to    my   sweetest 

brother  Palladius  and  to  my 


sweetest  children  Basilis  and 
Eugenia  in  my  lifetime  in 
remembrance. 


ArP<«  iYrCN/OCYIOCMA 
{ » W  OV  A///'/////C  THCATU/ 
r  A  y  KYTAT  WMOYAAeA 

4>wrrAAAAA/a>  k-  rye 

rAyKYTA^T  YCM0VT€kNyC 

BAClAl^HKCCyrCNIH 

ZUNMNHMHCXAP)N 

Fig.  9. 
IV.  The  above,  an  early  inscription,  is  specially  remark- 
able on  account  of  the  ornamentation.  There  is  here  the 
most  patent  and  indubitable  intention  to  employ  the  mono- 
gram of  X  and  P  (indicating  the  name  of  Christ)  for  a 
decorative  purpose,  symmetrically  on  each  side  of  a  circle 
over  the  inscription.  This  monogram  was  of  later  origin 
than  that  of  I  and  X  (on  which  see  No.  10).  From  the 
latter,  as  I  believe,  arose  the  Christian  use  of  the  six-rayed 


in  the  Fourth  Century  369 

star  or  rosette ;  and  it  is  sometimes  placed  on  one  side  of 
an  epitaph  to  correspond  to  a  cross  on  the  opposite  side. 
The  cross  with  bent  arms,  swastika,  was  another  decorative 
variety:  see  No.  11. 

The  monogram  of  I  and  X  seems  probably  to  belong  to 
the  third  century,  of  X  and  P  to  begin  about  300  A.D,, 
while  the  upright  monogrammatic  cross  ^  is  not  earlier  than 
350  A.D.  in  common  use  (see  Cities  and  Bish.  of  Phr.,  ii., 
p.  739;  De  Rossi, /«j-<:r.  Crist. ^  No.  127;  Le  Blant, /«.fcr. 
Chret.  Gaule,  No.  369,  and  Manuel^  p.  29). 

V.  Nova  Isaura  {Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1905,  p. 
172). 

7.  Claudia  adorned  Aur.  Thal[]ais  ^  her  husband  honour- 
able oikonomos  in  remembrance. 

Though  there  is  no  proof  that  Claudia's  deceased  husband 
was  an  ecclesiastic,  yet  it  is  highly  probable  that  the  honour- 
able oikonomos  here  should  be  understood  in  a  similar 
sense  to  the  oikonomos  of  No.  4.  One  aspect  of  the  bishop's 
or  presbyter's  duty,  which  was  specially  appreciated  by  the 
congregation,  is  emphasised  and  consecrated  to  memory  (a.s 
has  been  mentioned  on  No.  2). 

The  date  is  early,  as  appears  from  the  name  Claudia^ 
from  the  pseudo-praenomen  Aur.,  from  the  use  of  the 
simpler  term  honourable  (eWet/ioi/)  instead  of  the  superlative 
Ti/j,LcoTaTov  (which  occurs  in  No.  12,  and  was  stereotyped 
before  the  time  of  Basil),  and  from  the  absence  of  all  overtly 
ecclesiastical  character.  The  epitaph  is  to  be  ranked  along 
with  that  of  Septimia  Domna  (see  No.  16),  and,  like  it,  pro- 
bably belongs  to  the  third  century.  The  oikonomissa  in 
No.  22  is  not  earlier  than  the  late  fourth  century. 

^  An  example  at  Syracuse  dated  a.d.  416,  Rom.  Quarialschr,,  1896,  p.  48. 
*  There  are  probably  one  or  two  letters  lost  in  this  name. 

24 


370  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

8.  An  unnoticed  example  of  Oikonomos  used  simply  as  a 
title,  implying  probably  presbyter  or  bishop  as  administrator 
of  a  village  church,  occurs  in  the  district  of  Drya,  the  ex- 
treme northern  bishopric  of  Lycaonia  (united  with  Gdamava). 

Gallikos  the  oikonomos  of  the  people  Plommeis.^ 
It  would  be  quite  contrary  to  analogy,  and  perhaps  to  the 
allowable  possibilities  of  usage,^  to  take  Gallicus  here  as 
a  slave  of  the  emperor  stationed  in  this  village  (after  a 
fashion  illustrated  for  Laodicea  and  Zizima  in  Classical 
Review,  Oct.,  1905,  p.  369). 

The  presbyters  mentioned  are  very  numerous.  With  re- 
gard to  them  we  note  that  in  many  cases  they  were  married. 
The  number  of  cases  where  marriage  is  proved  by  mention 
of  wife  or  children  or  both  is  so  large,  that  this  was  evidently 
the  ordinary  custom  in  the  Lycaonian  congregations,  and  the 
unmarried  presbyters  were  exceptional.  Some  of  the  in- 
scriptions in  which  they  are  mentioned  may  perhaps  be  as 
early  as  the  end  of  the  third  century :  e.g. — 

9.  I  Aur,  Nestor  erected  this  titlos  to  my  sweetest  father 

Callimachus,  a  Presbyter,  in  remembrance. 

This  is  marked  as  early  (i)  by  the  formula;  (2)  by  the 
use  of  Aurelius  as  a  prcsnomen ;  (3)  by  the  term  "titlos," 
which  is  frequent  in  inscriptions  of  the  earlier  type,  and  dis- 
appears from  later  epitaphs. 

VI.  The  earliest  known  Christian  inscription  of  Lycaonia 
is  probably  the  following  from  Isaura  Nova,  published  in 
Studies  in  the  Art  and  History  of  the  Eastern  Roman  Pro- 

'  .\nderson,  in  Journ.  of  Hell.  Studies,  1899,  p.  124,  No.  136.  The  sym- 
bols, basket  on  table  and  cooking-pot  on  a  portable  charcoal  fireplace,  which 
are  shown  under  the  inscription,  are  common  on  tombstones  of  the  district, 
pagan  and  Christian  alike.  I  have  copied  many  examples.  They  point  to  a 
time  not  later  than  the  fourth  century. 

"^Extictor  reiptiblicce  Nacolensium,  C.I.L.,  iti.,  349,  is  hardly  a  sufficient 
defence. 


in  the  Fourth  Century 


371 


vinces,  p.  22  fF.,  by  Miss  Ramsay,  most  of  whose  commentary 
is  adopted  here.    This  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  Christian 

jn"~  }t'jf  f__^ 


'H^  ^iT^>ajC^.:^ir-;:\^'.;4j^ 


372  XII.   The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

inscriptions  that  have  as  yet  been  discovered,  coming  after, 
though  at  a  long  interval,  the  recently  discovered  No.  i,  and 
the  epitaph  of  Avircius  Marcellus.  The  ornamentation  is 
the  best  example  of  the  class,  which  is  exemplified  also  by 
Nos.  1 1  ff. 

lo.  [Non  ?]  ilia  honoured  the  blessed  papas,  the  sweetest 
one  and  the  friend  of  all. 

Very  dear  is  the  blessed  papas,  the  friend  of  God  (Theo- 
philus). 

In  remembrance. 

The  stone,  a  massive  rectangular  block  5  feet  i\  inches 
in  length  by  3  feet  9I  inches  in  height,  was  discovered  in 
1 90 1  on  the  hill  on  the  left  or  western  bank  of  the  stream 
that  flows  through  the  village  of  Dorla.  On  one  of  the  long 
sides  is  an  architectural  decoration,  which  takes  the  form  of 
four  columns  supporting  a  round  arch  and  two  side  pediments. 
The  pillars  supporting  the  central  arch  are  ornamented  with 
a  pattern  in  incised  lines,  and  above  the  arch  are  two  branches 
with  leaves  and  bunches  of  grapes.  The  shape  of  these 
leaves  is  doubtful,  as  the  stone  is  very  much  worn.  They 
seem  to  be  trefoils,  but  whether  rounded  or  pointed  it  is  im- 
possible to  say :  they  are  probably  intended  for  vine-leaves, 
but  if  so,  the  delicate  points  have  been  worn  away.  Below 
the  arch  is  an  open  book,  or  rather  a  set  of  tablets  opened  ; 
and  in  the  central  niche  between  the  columns  is  a  wreath  tied 
above  with  a  ribbon,  and  surrounding  the  second  part  of  the 
inscription,  and  the  letters  M  X,  for  ^lvr)^in)'i  X^P''^-  Each  of 
the  side  pediments  has  a  round  boss  in  the  centre ;  and  a 
garland  hangs  from  the  supporting  pillars,  and  beneath  it  is 
the  representation  of  a  fish.  All  the  ornament  is  in  relief, 
with  the  exception  of  the  ribbons  supporting  the  garlands, 
and  the  fins  of  the  fish,  which  are  merely  incised.     The 


in  the  Fourth  Century  373 

larger  part  of  the  epitaph  is  inscribed  above  the  ornament, 
close  to  the  upper  edge  of  the  stone. 

The  tomb  is  evidently  that  of  a  bishop.  In  the  expression 
the  blessed  papas  (6  fiaKdpto'i  iraTrat),  papas  must  be  either 
the  name  or  the  title  of  the  person  buried  there,  probably 
the  latter.  Judging  from  the  general  character  of  Anatolian 
inscriptions,  I  came  to  the  conclusion,  in  view  of  the  stone 
in  1901,  that  it  was  not  later  than  the  second  half  of  the 
third  century,  and  that  papas  was  the  title.  But  this 
epitaph  shows  the  remarkable  peculiarity  that  the  title 
supplants  the  actual  name,  in  imitation  of  the  pagan  custom 
according  to  which  a  priest  who  became  "  hieronymos " 
(like  the  principal  priests  at  Eleusis  and  in  various  of  the 
great  Anatolian  cities)  dropped  his  own  name  and  was 
known  simply  by  his  title.  This  peculiarity  is  suggestive 
of  a  very  early  date  ;  and  that  the  stone  is  an  early  one,  prior 
to  the  time  of  Constantine,  is  shown  also  by  the  lettering, 
and  by  the  general  character  of  the  epitaph  and  the  orna- 
ment. 

The  title  TraTra?  employed  in  this  inscription  is  extremely 
interesting.  It  proves  what  was  before  probable,  that  this 
title  was  at  first  employed  much  more  widely  and  was  gradu- 
ally restricted  in  use.  The  use  of  Papa  to  indicate  the  bishop 
in  Roman  inscriptions  begins  about  A.D.  300,  and  from  the 
sixth  century  it  is  confined  to  the  Pope.^  Dr.  Harnack  in 
Berl.  Sitzungsber.y  1900,  p.  990,  points  out  that  in  the  West 
Papa  was,  in  early  times,  used  only  in  Rome,  but  was  there 
employed  as  the  ordinary  term  for  bishop,  either  of  Rome, 
or  of  any  other  place.     Tertullian  uses  it  sarcastically  of  the 

^  Heraeus,  Archiv.  fur  latein.  Ltxicogr.,  xiii.,  157;  De  Rossi,  Inscr.  Chr. 
Urb.  Rom.,  i.,  p.  cxv. ;  Anth.  Lat.  Epigr.,  656,  2;  Caesar,  de  att.  tit.  Christ., 
p.  65. 


374  XII-    ^^^  Church  of  Lycaonia 

Roman  bishop  Callistus,  In  the  East  Harnack  thinks  it 
was  used  only  in  Egypt,  and  only  of  the  Bishop  of  Alexandria, 
so  that  6  fiaKdpi,o<i  Trdirat  was  the  recognised  title  of  that 
bishop  alone,  while  other  Egyptian  bishops  were  styled 
Trar-qp  rj/jLwv.  In  the  pre-Nicene  period,  as  he  says,  the  title 
TTttTTtt?  is  not  known  to  have  been  used  of  any  other  Eastern 
bishop :  but  it  was  customary  for  the  Alexandrian  bishops 
from  at  least  as  early  as  250.  Only  in  the  letter  of  Pseudo- 
Justin  to  Zenas  and  Serenus  the  title  6  Traua?  occurs.  The 
phrase  6  fiaKdpi,o<;  Trarra?  is  found  several  times  during  the 
third  century  in  Egypt,  and  was  a  recognised  title  of  the 
Bishop  of  Alexandria  This  Isauran  inscription  shows  that 
it  was  used  also  in  Asia  Minor  during  the  same  period. 
Dr.  Sanday  also  quotes  Gregory  Thaumaturgus,^  which 
implies  that  it  was  used  in  the  province  of  Pontus  about 
250. 

The  name  TraTraf,  applied  to  the  priest  of  Malos  Galatiae 
in  Acta  S,  Theodoti,  is  quoted  by  a  writer  in  Anal.  BolLy 
xxii.,  p.  327,  as  a  proof  that  the  document  was  not  written 
by  a  contemporary,  but  belongs  to  a  later  age.  In  view  of 
our  inscription  this  argument  falls  to  the  ground,  and  the 
use  of  the  term  TraTra?  in  that  document  is  rather  favourable 
to  the  view  (advocated  by  the  writer  many  years  ago,  and 
recently  by  Prof.  Harnack  and  others)  that  the  Acta  S. 
Theodoti  is  a  good  document  of  early  date. 

The  natural  human  feeling  shown  in  the  wording  of  the 
epitaph,  "the  sweetest  one  and  friend  of  all"  (jov  yKvKvrarov 
Kol  TravTcav  (f)i\ov),  points  to  an  early  Christian  period  ;  the 
epithets  applied  to  such  persons  as  bishops  afterwards  be- 
came much  more  religious  and   stereotyped  in  character. 

'  Ep.,  Canon  i.,  ov  ra  fipifxara  ti/ms  fiapu,  Ifph  (f.i.  Upfirarf)  vdna  (Routh, 
Rell.  Sacr.,  iii.,  256). 


in  the  Fourth  Century  375 

Compare  the  tender  expression,  "dearer  than  h'ght  and 
life  "  {ofXvKvrepov  <f>a>T6<i  koI  ^ot}^),  applied  by  Aur.  Xanthias 
to  his  son  who  died  at  the  age  of  seven,  in  a  Christian  in- 
scription of  Rome,  dated  by  the  consuls  of  A.D.  238.  The 
phrase  iravToyv  ^tXo?  is  here  used  in  an  inscription  which  is 
undoubtedly  Christian,  and  such  moral  sentiments  are  found 
on  many  Christian  tombstones,  but  they  cannot  alone  be 
taken  as  a  proof  of  Christian  origin.^  In  some  cases  similar 
sentiments  were  inscribed  on  non-Christian  tombs  as  a 
counterblast  to  Christianity ;  these  clearly  belong  to  the 
pagan  philosophical  reaction.^  It  seems  most  probable 
that  they  were  ordinarily  Christian,  and  their  occurrence  on 
pagan  stones  is  a  proof  of  the  strong  influence  which  the  new 
religion  exerted  even  on  its  opponents.  Another  example 
is  found  in  Cz'tz'es  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  ii.,  p.  386  f , 
No.  232.  The  expression  Trdvrwv  ^iXo^  occurs  in  an  inscrip- 
tion of  Tarsus,  which  may  perhaps  be  restored  [77  ■^vxh  iv] 
rm  alo)VL  ^tj.  ^a>(T^6po<;  6  TravTojv  (f)i\o<i  k.t.X.  ;  the  inscrip- 
tion continues  in  the  ordinary  style  of  epitaphs,  though  with 
some  unusual  features  (published  with  some  difference  by 
Messrs.  Heberdey  and  Wilhelm  in  Wiener  Akad.  Denk- 
schrifteity  1896,  p.  5):  it  is  evidently  either  Christian  or  of 
the  reaction,  when  the  aim  was  to  show  that  paganism  was 
superior  to  Christianity  on  its  own  linea  At  Salonika  rw 
TrdvTcov  ^iX(p  MyXdryo)  is  probably  pagan  {Mitth.  Inst.  A  then., 
1896,  p.  98). 

Beoi)  (jii\o<i  is  probably  a  play  on  Theophilus,  and  thus 
reveals  the  real  name  of  the  bishop. 

The  fish,  the  common  symbol  of  the  Christians  in  the 

^Cities  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  ii.,  p.  495. 

*  Compare  Cities  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  ii.,  p.  506  f.,  and  Pauline  and 
other  Studies,  pp.  103-122. 


^j6  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

early  centuries,  passed  out  of  use  at  a  comparatively  early 
date,  and  the  same  is  true  of  the  open  tablets  which  appear 
on  this  stone.  This  symbol  occurs  also  on  several  North- 
Phrygian  tombs,  which  were  published  in  the  Expositor  in 
1888  and   1905. 

The  character  of  the  ornament  on  this  stone  also  points  to 
an  early  date,  probably  the  third  century  A.D.  It  seems  at 
first  sight  to  be  an  earlier  stage  of  the  elaborate  decoration 
common  on  Byzantine  and  Roman  sarcophagi  of  the  fourth 
century,  a  row  of  figures  standing  in  niches,  with  highly 
intricate  and  elaborate  tracery  and  architectural  ornament. 
Here  we  have  the  semi-architectural  schema,  without  the 
human  figures.  But,  as  one  stone  after  another  is  discovered, 
we  see  that  the  schema  is  a  traditional  type  in  Nova  Isaura, 
characteristic  of  the  place,  which  is  likely  to  have  lasted  for 
centuries,  varied,  but  never  essentially  changed.  The  fact 
that  it  is  a  simpler  stage  of  the  fourth  century  sarcophagus 
style  would  not,  taken  alone,  prove  anything  about  date. 
But  this  monument  is  very  much  larger  than  the  other  Dorla 
monuments,  and  represents  an  attempt  to  improve  upon  and 
elaborate  the  native  type.  New  elements  are  introduced  on 
this  tomb  which  are  unknown  on  any  of  the  other  stones  in 
Dorla ;  and  yet  it  is  indubitably  among  the  very  earliest  of 
all  the  examples  found  in  the  village.  This  more  ambitious 
style  is  a  proof  that  more  money,  care,  and  work  were  spent 
on  this  stone.  It  was  the  tomb  of  an  exceptional  person 
(either  through  his  wealth  or  through  his  rank),  and  it 
represented  the  highest  stage  of  which  local  art  was  capable, 
elaborating  the  native  schema  by  imported  additions, 
especially  the  fish,  that  widespread  symbol,  which  was 
certainly  not  invented  in  Nova  Isaura,  but  introduced  there 
from  outside.     Now,  had  this  large  and  ambitious  monument 


in  the  Fourth  Century  2>77 

been  built  in  the  fourth  century,  it  would  probably  have 
shown  some  of  the  Grneco- Roman  forms  most  characteristic 
of  that  time ;  taking  into  consideration  the  entire  absence  of 
those  characteristic  fourth  century  forms,  and  the  fact  that 
in  the  Dorla  series  this  has  all  the  appearance  of  being 
among  the  earliest,  we  must  infer  that  it  belongs  to  the 
third  century.     See  on  No.  1 1. 

The  ornament  scattered  liberally  over  the  surface  of  the 
stone  contains  various  elements ;  but  none  of  these  are 
necessarily  borrowed  from  a  formed  Graeco-Roman  art. 
The  fish  was  taken  as  a  symbol,  not  as  an  artistic  element, 
and  is  placed  on  the  tomb  to  be  significant,  and  not  merely 
to  be  ornamental. 

Other  elements  in  the  ornamentation,  besides  the  fish,  are 
almost  certainly  symbolical.  The  vine  branch  above  the 
central  pediment  indicates  that  the  bishop  was  a  branch  of 
the  true  vine,  and  the  garland  symbolises  the  crown  of  life. 
The  open  tablets,  as  has  been  pointed  out  in  the  Expositor, 
April,  I905,  p.  296  f.,  are  to  betaken  as  representing  the 
record  of  the  covenant  between  God  and  man.  It  is  there 
shown  that  the  idea  of  the  tablets  is  derived  from  Rev.  v.  i 
fif.,  and  that  "  the  book,"  which  is  mentioned  in  that  passage, 
is  really  a  set  of  double  or  triple  tablets,  with  a  document 
or  covenant  written  in  duplicate,  one  inside  closed  up, 
witnessed  and  sealed  by  seven  witnesses,  the  other  on  the 
outside  open  and  public  (according  to  the  usual  Roman 
custom  in  regard  to  important  business  documents  or  wills). 
The  book  should  be  compared  with  the  mosaic  inscription  of 
Naro  in  Africa  (Hammam-Lif),  instrumenta  servi  tui,  on  an 
open  diploma :  this  inscription  was  in  mosaic  in  a  room 
beside  the  church,  in  which  were  kept  the  sacred  books,  etc. 
{Rev.  Arch.,  1904,  p.  368). 


S7^  XII.    T/ie  Church  of  Lycaonia 

As  is  shown  in  this  article,  the  Revelation  is  the  one  book 
of  the  New  Testament  which  is  often  referred  to  in  the 
Lycaonian  inscriptions  ;  and  John  is,  next  to  Paul  and  Mirus 
(Wonderful),  the  commonest  male  name  in  those  inscriptions 
during  the  fourth  century. 

It  is  probable  that  the  six-leaved  rosettes  are  also  sym- 
bolical. The  frequency  of  this  rosette  on  Lycaonian  Christian 
monuments,  and  the  way  in  which  it  is  sometimes  employed, 
suggest  that  it  is  a  modification  of  the  early  Christian  mono- 
gram;^, originally  representing  'I(7}o-ov<i)  Xipiarro'i).  See 
Nos.  5,  6. 

Though  a  bishop  is  mentioned  in  this  epitaph,  the  name 
Isaura  never  occurs  in  the  Byzantine  lists  of  bishoprics.  It 
has  been  shown  in  an  article  on  Lycaonia,  published  in  the 
Austrian  /akresAe/U,  1904,  Part  ii.,  that  the  two  neighbour- 
ing towns,  Isaura  Nova  and  Korna,  were  bishoprics  in  early 
time,  but  were  merged  in  the  great  autokephalos  bishopric  of 
Isaura  Palaea,  called  Leontopolis,  some  time  after  381,  and 
probably  at  the  same  time  that  the  name  Leontopolis  was 
given  to  Isaura,  namely  about  474,  Basil  himself,  E/>.  190, 
dreaded  this  loss  of  independence  "  for  the  small  states  or 
villages  which  possess  an  Episcopal  seat  from  ancient  times," 
and  in  order  to  prevent  it  when  the  bishopric  of  Isaura 
Palaea  was  vacant  about  374,  he  wrote  to  Amphilochius  of 
Iconium  and  recommended  the  nomination  of  officials  called 
TTpola-Tdfievoi  for  the  smaller  towns  or  cities  before  a  new 
bishop  was  appointed  for  Isaura.  The  grave  of  one  of  these 
officials  at  Alkaran,  between  Korna  and  Nova  Isaura,  is 
published  in  Eastern  Studies,  p.  29. 

II.  Nova  Isaura  (Miss  Ramsay  in  Eastern  Studies}  p.  35). 

1  This  abbreviation  is  used  here  and  below  for  the  book  quoted  with  fuller 
title  in  Nos.  10,  15. 


in  the  Fourth  Century 


379 


Macer  and  Oa[s]  and  Anolis(?)  ^  their  sister  adorned  the 
bishop  Mammas,  friend  to  all  men. 

The  ornamentation  is  similar  in  subject  and  arrangement  to 
the  preceding,  but  more  conventional  and  therefore  probably 
later.  The  object  like  a  net  between  the  columns  on  the 
right  apparently  represents  one  of  the  screens  which  are 


'MAt<:CP0C4CAIOA      A(AN 

TO^)TTAC(45f^o^i£fr(CKorroN 


Fig.  II. 

mentioned  in  the  preceding  commentary  (No.  i) :  the 
screens  at  Tyre  are  described  by  Eusebius  as  being  "  made 
in  net-fashion  ".2  It  might  be  possible  to  take  the  ob- 
ject here  portrayed  as  a  net,  and  to  understand  that  the 
bishop  is  indicated  symbolically  as  a  fisher  of  men  ;  but  the 
architectural  character  of  the  ornamentation  on  the  grave- 
stones at  Nova  Isaura,  and  the  skill  of  Isaurian  masons,^  make 


^  The  names  are  all  faint  and  uncertain. 

•Their  skill  is  described  and  proved  by  Professor  HoU  in  Hermes,  1908, 
p.  24a. 


380  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

it  practically  certain  that  one  of  the  wooden  latticed  screens 
used  in  the  churches  is  here  intended. 

The  origin  of  this  symbol  from  the  arrangement  of  the 
Christian  church  building,  taken  in  connection  with  the 
architectural  character  of  the  Isauran  scheme  of  decoration, 
makes  it  highly  probable  that  this  scheme  has  the  same 
origin.  We  regard  it  as  probable,  therefore,  that  the  typical 
Isauran  decorative  scheme  on  tombstones  was  suggested  by 
some  typical  form  of  the  Lycaonian  Church,  either  the  rounded 
arch  of  the  apse  between  the  two  aisles,  or  the  triple  door- 
way at  the  west  end  with  a  round  arch  flanked  by  two 
pointed  pediments.^  The  latter  is  perhaps  the  more  pro- 
bable. Some  of  the  Isauran  monuments  show  a  pointed 
middle  pediment  between  two  round  arches ;  and  this  might 
be  explained  as  due  to  similar  variety  in  the  west  doorways 
of  churches.  The  weak  point  of  the  theory  is  that  I  cannot 
point  to  any  example  in  the  triple  church  doorways  that 
remain ;  but  these  are  all  of  much  later  date.  The  alterna- 
tion of  round  and  pointed  occurs  in  a  Roman  building  at 
Basilika  Therma  in  Cappadocia,  and  also  in  theatres  of  the 
Roman  period  in  Asia  Minor  (as  Professor  Strzygowski 
pointed  out  to  me) ;  and  it  may  be  quite  plausibly  supposed 
to  have  characterised  the  triple  doors  of  early  churches.- 

The  habitual  use  of  wooden  screens  in  the  churches  of 
central  Asia  Minor  is,  therefore,  proved  with  certainty  for  the 
early  fourth  century  and  with  probability  for  the  third.  These 
screens  were  made  by  piercing  the  wood  with  a  sharp  in- 
strument called  a  kenteterion.     The  example  shown  on  this 

1  Compare  the  Tyrian  church  door,  p.  347,  1.  13,  knd  Eastern  Studies,  pp. 
19-54.    The  pagan  tomb  was  a  temple,  the  Christian  grave  a  church. 

*  Those  who  explain  the  scheme  as  originated  by  the  interior  view  of  the 
church  vWth  apse  between  aisles,  will  hold  that  the  scheme  with  pointed  middle 
18  due  to  unintelligent  variation  of  a  form  whose  origin  had  been  forgotten. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  381 

monument  at  Nova  Isaura  is  very  simple  in  kind,  and 
might  be  made  out  of  straight  wooden  staves  ;  but  the  kcn- 
teseis  of  No.  i  probably  imply  a  more  elaborate  kind  of 
work.  The  importance  of  this  fact  about  the  use  of  wood- 
work in  early  churches  appears,  when  one  remembers  the 
influence  exerted  on  the  development  of  art  in  later  Roman 
times  by  oriental  woodwork,  as  shown  by  Strzygowski  (see 
especially  his  Rom  oder  Orient,  a  highly  suggestive  and  truly 
bahnbrechend  work,  though  with  the  faults  that  inevitably 
belong  to  a  book  of  the  pioneer  type).  In  later  churches  we 
have  found  in  several  cases  stone  screens  instead  of  wooden. 
Wood  was  scanty  and  expensive  on  the  open  plateau  gener- 
ally ;  but  both  Laodicea  and  Nova  Isaura  were  close  under 
hills  where  trees  grew  and  wood  was  cheaper. 

There  was  also  an  ornament  between  the  left-hand  pair 
of  columns,  but  it  has  been  carefully  obliterated  in  modern 
times.  The  crosses  placed  so  inconspicuously  in  the  two 
pointed  pediments  might  pass  for  mere  ornament  among 
pagans,  while  they  would  be  significant  to  the  initiated. 
Such  was  the  character  of  early  Christian  epitaphs,^  On  the 
later  gravestones  the  symbolism  is  more  patent  and  uncon- 
cealed. 

The  use  of  the  screen  as  a  symbol  might  at  first  sight  sug- 
gest a  date  about  330-350,  when  screens  are  mentioned  in 
the  churches  at  Laodicea  (close  at  hand)  and  Tyre.  But 
in  all  probability  the  use  of  screens  in  churches  was  of  older 
origin,  and  characterised  the  pre-Diocletian  Church  as  much 
as  the  post-Diocletian.  The  epithet  of  the  bishop  is  not  of 
the  style  which  was  usual  in  the  fourth-century  writers,  but 
of  an  earlier  kind.  The  concealed  crosses  strongly  suggest 
the  third  century  ;  and  this  date  agrees  well  with  the  nomen- 

^  Cititi  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  ii.,  p.  50a. 


382  XII.   The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

clature.  The  rustic  symbols,  mattock  and  sickle,  are  also  of 
an  early  character.  On  the  other  hand  the  ornamentation 
is  so  exactly  similar  to  that  of  No,  12  (an  epitaph  which 
distinctly  belongs  to  about  A.D.  350),  that  the  two  cannot 
be  far  removed  from  one  another  in  date.  We  incline  there- 
fore to  assign  to  the  period  A.D.  310-330  this  monument 

The  crown  or  garland  in  the  central  pediment  was  doubt- 
less also  symbolical. 

The  descriptive  epithet  "  friend  to  all "  ("  friend  of  all "  in 
No.  10),  while  it  is  in  a  sense  a  summary  of  a  chapter  in  the 
Apostolic  Constitutions,  ii.,  20,  on  the  duties  of  the  bishop,  be- 
longs to  an  earlier  time  than  the  stereotyped  formulae  of  honour 
assigned  to  ecclesiastical  officials  in  the  writings  of  the  fourth 
century  authors  and  in  the  epitaphs  of  that  period.  It  was 
used  in  the  pagan  reaction  A.D.  303-313,^  and  was  therefore 
in  older  Christian  use.  Accordingly,  we  cannot  assume  that 
this  epitaph  is  older  than  A.D.  303  ;  but  we  can  confidently 
believe  that  it  is  not  very  much  later. 

12.  Nova  Isaura(Miss  Ramsay  in  Eastern  Studies ,  P-  37X 
The  most  honourable  deacon  Tabeis,  Nanna  his  mother 

and  Valgius  and  Lucius  his  brothers,  adorned  (him) 

i(n)  r(emembrance). 
There  is  evidently  no  long  interval  between  this  monu- 
ment and  No.  10.  Both  were  probably  made  in  the  same 
workshop.  The  screen  (represented  here  in  slightly  different 
fashion)  and  the  bent  cross,  are  both  Christian  symbols. 
The  latter  is  frequent  on  Isaurian  Christian  tombstones  (p. 
385).  The  formula  of  styling  the  deacon  T€i,fitcoTaTos  is  quite 
•in  the  developed  fashion,  which  was  usual  in  fourth-century 
writers  such  as  Basil. 

13.  Somewhat  later  than  No  11,  but  probably  earlier  than 

^  See  above,  p.  375.  | 


in  the  Fourth  Century 


383 


No.  12,  and  therefore  of  the  period  290-320,  is  the  follow- 
ing:— 


•*7»<r  "  -/W 


^H.Vs'-N^v.- 


Nova  Isaura  (Miss  Ramsay  in  Eastern   Studies,  p.  30). 
The    very    pure  and    sweet-voiced    and    with-all-virtue- 
adorned  Sisamoas,  bishop. 


;84 


XII.   The  Church  of  Lycaonia 


The  epithets  here  differ  from,  yet  have  a  distinct  analogy 
to,  those  used  of  the  bishop  by  Basil  of  Caesarea  about  370  : 
the  epithets  are  there  quite  conventional  and  stereotyped,  and 
had  therefore  already  been  fixed  in  use  for  a  considerable 
time.  Take  for  example  "the  most  God-beloved  Bishop," 
o  6€o(f>iXeaTaTO(i  iiria-KOTro'i,  addressed  as  "your  piety,"  "  your 
perfection,"  "  your  God-fearing-ness,"  "  your  divine  and  most 
perfect  consideration,"  "  your  comprehension  "  :  ^  these  have 
all  come  to  be  used  as  polite  designations  and  forms  of  address. 


OArMOTAci 


KAlTTACHCAPe 
k£KOC/^HM£NOC 

AcemcKonoc 


Fig.  13. 

Contrast  these  forms  with  the  simple  direct  expression  of  Nos. 
10  and  1 1, 

By  comparison  with  this  inscription  we  observe  that  Nos. 
2,  4,  describing  the  duties  of  the  presbyter,  present  to  us  the 
free  and  unstereotyped  stage  of  expression,  out  of  which 
grew  the  forms  used  in  Basil's  time ;  and  therefore  we  can 
hardly  date  them  later  than  a.d.  350. 

Another  example  of  an  early  bishop  is — 

^  Basil,  Ep.  181  (dated  a.d.  374),  ^7  fv\d0(ia  a-ov  (frequent),  i)  ffi)  Te\f i6t7is 
(172),  Tj  Bfoffefifia  ffov  (167),  i)  ^v9(os  koI  rt\ttOTdrrj  (ppSyriffis  ffov  (141),  tj 
ffvvtffii  ffov  (16s).  A  presbyter,  on  the  other  hand,  is  simply  "  your  perfect 
consideration,"  i]  rtAeta  (ppovtjo'ti  frou,  or  "  honoured  head,"  rifxia  Kf<pa\^  ('S^)- 


in  the  Fourth  Century  385 

14.  Yuruk-Keui,  near  the  base  of  the  Kara  Dagh. 

Apas  son  of  Kouanzaphees  erected  to  his  brother  Indakos, 
bishop,  just,  beloved,  in  his  own  life-time  and  for  him- 
self, in  remembrance.^ 
(Symbol.)       (Leaf.)       (Garland.)       (Leaf.)       (Symbol.)* 

This  unpublished  inscription,  found  in  1905  between  Nova 
Isaura,  Derbe  and  Barata,  is  of  the  early  class.  The  bishop 
who  is  here  mentioned  was  indubitably  a  mere  village- 
bishop  (probabl)''  under  Barata)  or  ^^eopeTrto-zcoTro?  of  the 
fourth  or  even  the  third  century. 

15  and  16.  Alkaran  near  Nova  Isaura  (Miss  Ramsay  in 
Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Provinces^  p.  33). 

Aur(elia)  Domna  sweetest  daughter,  who  persevered  in 
virginity  and  industry :  her  father,  Aur(elius)  Oresti- 
anus,  son  of  Cyrus  (honoured  her  with  the  sepulchral 
monument).     See  Figure  on  p.  328. 

The  scheme  of  ornament  is  the  architectural  type  common 
in  this  Isauran  region  (see  No.  10).  The  two  doves,  one  hold- 
ing a  leaf  in  its  mouth  (Genesis  viii.  11),  are  undoubtedly 
symbolical,  and  would  alone  be  enough  to  prove  the  religion, 
which  is  also  clearly  indicated  in  the  words  of  the  epitaph. 
The  doves  are  incised,  and  were  added  later  (doubtless  after 
purchase  of  the  stone  from  the  artist)  :  the  rest  of  the  orna- 
ment is  in  relief  The  bent  cross,  or  swastika,  occurs  very 
frequently  on  I  saurian  Christian  gravestones.^  On  the  dove, 
compare  No,  19. 

Beside  the  tombstone  of  Aurelia  Domna  was  found  the 

^  'Airas  'K.ovav^oA^iovs  aueffrrjcrey  a5e\<pqi  avTOv  'lySaKcp  eViff/cJircfj  SiK((p  aya<p7iT<f 
^a>v  Kf  tavrov  /x.x-     The  misspelling  of  a.ya'jrrir6s  is  usual. 

''The  "symbols"  in  this  line  were  defaced :  they  were  enclosed  within 
circles,  and  were  probably  either  crosses  or  six-leaved  rosettes. 

•^  Sterrett,  Wolfe  Expedition,  Nos.  56,  93,  220  ;  and  scores  of  other  examples, 
then  unknown  to  him,  have  been  discovered  since. 

25 


386  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

epitaph  of  "[L?]  Septimia  Domna,  the  sweetest  and  holiest 
wife"  of  [Aurelius?]  Orestes,  son  of  Cyrus.  The  two  stones 
belonged  to  a  family  cemetery  ;  and  evidently  were  not  very 
far  removed  in  date  from  one  another.  L  ?  Septimia  Domna 
was  almost  certainly  born  about  A.D.  200.  The  use  of 
Aurelius  as  a  sort  of  praenomen  ^  began  about  A.D.  212,  when 
the  provincials  were  elevated  to  Roman  citizenship  by  the 
Emperor  Aurelius  Caracalla.  It  lasted  about  a  century. 
Hence  Aurelia  Domna  may  have  died  about  the  end  of  the 
third  or  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century.  Her  grave- 
stone may  be  dated  between  No.  10  and  No.  12.  It  is  not  so 
stereotyped  as  the  latter,  but  it  wants  the  freedom  of  No.  10. 

The  name  Orestianos  perhaps  indicates  a  generation  later 
than  Orestes.  Septimia,  the  wife  of  Orestes,  might  be  by 
marriage  the  aunt  ofOrestianos,  the  father  of  Aurelia  Domna. 
It  is,  however,  not  impossible  that  Cyrus  had  two  sons,  Orestes 
and  Orestianos,'^  and  that  Septimia  was  the  aunt  of  Aurelia 
Domna.  Either  supposition  would  suit  the  date  suggested 
by  the  art,  though  the  latter  would  tend  to  make  No.  15a  little 
earlier  than  the  former.  There  is  nothing  indicative  of 
religion  on  the  tombstone  of  Septimia  Domna  ;=^  but  the 
family  was  probably  Christian,  It  was  characteristic  of  the 
earlier  period  that  the  religion  should  not  be  obtrusively 
mentioned. 

It  cannot  be  inferred  from  the  remarkable  language  of  this 
epitaph  that  Aurelia  Domna  was  officially  a  virgin  {irapdevo'i) 
in  the  church.  But  the  Christian  character  is  unmistakable 
in  the  phrase  "  persevering  in  virginity  ".     See  No.  29  ff. 

1  Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Provinces,  p.  355.  The  custom  is 
a  Greek  fashion,  not  true  to  Roman  usage.  The  use  of  Aurelius  as  a  nomen 
was,  of  course,  older,  and  is  found  in  the  whole  period  160-300  A.D. 

^  In  that  case  Cyrus  would  be  son  of  an  older  Orestes. 

3  The  ornamentation  is  two  rosettes  and  three  leaves. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  387 


The  "industry"  which  is  also  attributed  to  her  was  un- 
doubtedly in  the  feminine  arts  of  spinning  and  household 
work,  which  are  often  indicated  on  gravestones  by  the  proper 
implements,  distaff  and  spindle,  pots  and  pans,  tripod  for 
supporting  them,  etc.  In  one  inscription  these  are  called  the 
"  works  of  x'\thena"  {Studies  in  the  Eastern  Prov.,  p.  70), 

VII.  The  distinction  between  clergy  and  laity  as  separate 
orders  is  clearly  marked  in  the  Lycaonian  inscriptions, 
hardly  indeed  in  the  earliest  class,  but  certainly  in  those 
which  may  on  our  view  be  placed  soon  after  the  middle  of 
the  fourth  century.  The  popular  use  of  the  term  hiereiis  to 
designate  a  bishop  or  presbyter  probably  marks  the  full  and 
general  recognition  of  this  distinction  between  the  clergy 
and  the  ordinary  congregation ;  and  the  correlative  term 
laos^  to  indicate  the  laity,  must  have  come  into  use  at  the 
same  time.^  It  is  true  that  the  words  were  in  Christian  use 
from  the  beginning ;  but  not  hardened  in  the  technical 
sense  of  contrasted  orders  of  society.  The  distinction,  how- 
ever, is  older  than  Basil. 

The  Anatolian  inscriptions  in  which  either  term  occurs  seem 
generally  to  be  as  late  as  the  fifth  century  ;  though  some  may 
perhaps  be  as  early  as  the  second  half  of  the  fourth.  The 
fact  that  the  term  hiereus  is  much  rarer  in  these  inscriptions 
than  presbyter  OS  affords  an  argument  that  we  have  been  right 
in  placing  a  large  number  of  the  epitaphs  before  A.D.  350. 

Further,  any  inscription  which  plainly  neglects  or  is  ignorant 
of  the  distinction  between  priest  and  laity  is  to  be  dated 
earlier  than  A.D.  350 ;  and  inscriptions  or  documents  in  which 
the  occupation  of  the  presbyter  is  mentioned  are  likely  also 
to  be  earlier  than  that  time. 

1  See  an  inscription  of  Northern  Phrygia,  given  in  the  Expositor,  Oct.,  1888, 
p.  261. 


388  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

17  and  18.  Zazadin  Khan  (Cronin  in  Journal  of  Hellenic 
Studies,  1902,  p.  361). 

Two  epitaphs  from  an  ancient  village  beside  the  very 
interesting  early  Turkish  building,  Zazadin  Khan,  twelve 
miles  north-east  of  Iconium,  show  the  same  metrical  form 
applied  to  two  hiereis  or  priests  of  the  village.  The 
lines  were  therefore  a  standing  formula  for  epitaphs  of 
priests. 

Here  lies  a  man,  priest  of  great  God,  who  on  account  of 

gentleness   gained  heavenly   glory,  snatched  hastily 

from    Church   and    congregation,  having  the   name 

Apollinarius  [in  the  other  case,  Gregory],  great  glory 

of  the  congregation. 

The  formula,  "here  lies,"  is  of  later  type  than  the  epitaphs 

in  which  the  maker  of  the  tomb  is  mentioned ;  it  is  a  mere 

translation  of  the  Latin  hie  j'ncet,  and  marks  the  spread  of 

Roman  custom  in  the  Greek-speaking  districts  of  the  East. 

Probably  no  example  of  it  in  Christian  Anatolian  use  can 

be  safely  dated  earlier  than  the  fourth  century. 

One  of  the  two  epitaphs,  that  of  Gregory,  has  two  addi- 
tional lines,  worse  in  syntax  and  expression  than  the  four 
stereotyped  verses,  and  hardly  intelligible :  perhaps 

"A   man  who   was  a  care  to  God   through  joyousness; 

E[lpidio?]s  erected  the  stele  and  thus  inscribed  on 

the  tomb."  ^ 

Here  the  older  form  of  epitaph,  mentioning  the  maker  of 

the  tomb,  makes  itself  felt  at  the  end,  implying  that  that 

class  was  not   yet  forgotten    or   wholly   out   of   date.      In 

accordance  with  the  principles  on  which  we  are  working,  it 

iRev.  H.  S.  Cronin  in  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1902,  p.  362,  No.  126; 
but  I  siiould  prefer  now  to  restore  a  proper  name  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth 
hexameter,  E[  .  .  .]s.  The  lormiila,  so-and-so  aceo-TTjo-ev  the  deceased,  is 
common  in  Lycaonia. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  389 

would  be  impossible  to  place  this  inscription  later  than  about 
400  A. D.  Now  the  formula  of  the  first  four  lines  was  not 
composed  for  Gregory,  but  taken  from  an  already  stereo- 
typed epitaph  suitable  for  any  priest ;  and  when  the  com- 
poser of  Gregorj^^'s  epitaph  tried  to  add  something  distinctive 
in  the  last  two  lines  he  sank  to  a  much  lower  level  and 
became  almost  unintelligible.  The  metrical  formula,  there- 
fore, was  a  rather  early  composition,  perhaps  not  later  than 
350,  like  several  others  in  the  same  region.^  No,  4,  a 
metrical  epitaph,  probably  contains  the  verb  lepevei'  in  1.  3, 
which  would  presuppose  the  use  of  the  noun  hiereiis.  Thus 
we  can  push  back  the  popular  use  of  the  term  hiereus  in 
Lycaonia  as  far  at  least  as  about  350  A.D. 

There  is,  of  course,  no  difficulty  in  supposing  that  the 
distinction  between  priest  and  laity  (tepey?  and  \ao<i)  was 
even  older  than  this  :  the  words  are  taken  from  the  language 
of  the  Septuagint.  Already  in  A.D.  218  an  expression 
(quoted  by  Eusebius,  Hist.  Eccles.,  vi.,  19,  18)  is  found 
where  the  congregation  (Xao^)  is  set  over  against  the  bishop  : 
the  distinction  is  here  latent  though  not  explicit.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  certain  that  priests  even  late  in  the  fourth 
century  ordinarily  lived  by  practising  some  trade,  as  Basil, 
Ep.  198,  says,  **the  majority  of  them  ply  sedentary  crafts, 
whereby  they  get  their  daily  bread  ". 

Another  example  of  the  relation  of  Hiereus  and  Presby- 
teros  may  be  quoted — 

19.  Iconium  (Cronin  in  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1902, 
p.  124).     Four  rough  hexameters. 

Gourdos,  good  man,  sleeps  here  like  a  dove.  He  was 
among  men  priest  {hiereus)  of  the  Most  High  God. 

'For  example,  No.  25  of  the  New-Isauran  inscriptions  published  by  Miss 
Ramsay  in  Eastern  Studies,  p.  47. 


390  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

To  him  Trokondas,  his  successor  and  comrade,  made 
a  stele  in  memory,  doing  him  honour  on  his  tomb. 
(A  Cross  in  relief  on  each  side  of  the  epitaph.) 
Trokondas  is  called  the  comrade  {hmawv)  of  the  deceased ; 
but  the  word,  like  the  Latin  comes,  implies  indubitably 
inferiority  in  position.  Trokondas  was  probably  a  Deacon 
and  Gourdos  was  his  Bishop  or  Presbyter.  The  same 
Gourdos,  perhaps,  is  mentioned  in  another  inscription — - 

20.  Aur.  Gourdos,  a  Presbyter,  erected  (the  tomb  of) 
Tyrannos  his  adopted  son  (or  foundling  son)  in  re- 
membrance (Sterrett,  Epigr.  Journey,  No.  197). 

The  latter  epitaph  has  all  the  marks  of  the  earliest  class 
of  Lycaonian  epitaphs;  and  it  might  very  well  be  twenty  or 
even  forty  years  earlier  than  the  former,  which  was  engraved 
on  the  tomb  of  Gourdos.  The  omission  of  the  praenomen 
Aur.  in  the  former  is  no  proof  of  diversity  in  the  person : 
both  because  this  praenomen  is  frequently  found  omitted 
and  inserted  in  different  references  to  the  same  person,^  and 
because  the  epitaph  of  Gourdos  is  in  hexameter  verse,  in 
which  proper  names  were  always  treated  more  freely.  The 
unusual  name  Gourdos  (never  el«ewhere  found)  is  not  likely 
to  have  occurred  twice  in  the  case  of  a  Presbyter  and  a 
Hiereus  at  Iconium  during  one  century.  The  Presbyter  and 
the  Hiereus  were  assuredly  the  same  person 

The  epitaph  of  Gourdos  is  interesting  in  several  respects. 
It  unites  the  old  formula  with  the  new ;  "  here  sleeps"  is  a 
mere  poetic  variation  of  "here  lies,"  while  the  concluding 
lines  name  the  maker  of  the  tomb.  The  occurrence  of  the 
old  formula  at  the  end  in  addition  to  the  later  formula  at 
the  beginning  has  been  regarded  above  as  belonging  to  the 
transition  period,  before  the  old  formula  had  been  forgotten ; 

^  See  Studies  in  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Proviftces,  p.  355. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  391 

and  most  of  the  cases  where  the  old  and  the  new  are  united 
are  in  metrical  epitaphs  which  seem  to  belong  to  the  period 
A.D.  340-370. 

The  comparison  to  the  dove  is  suggested  by  the  type 
found  (sometimes  in  relief,  sometimes  incised)  on  many 
tombstones  of  Lycaonia.  One  example  from  Isaura  Nova 
is  given  as  No.  15. 

21.  An  inscription  which  must  cause  some  hesitation  is — 
Papas  and  Gaius,  sons  of  Titus  Lorentius,  to  their  father 
hiereus  and  Mania  their  mother  hierissa  in  remem- 
brance.^ 
I  published  this  at  first  as  an  ordinary  pagan  inscription  ; 
but,  since  subsequently  published  epitaphs  have  shown  that 
hiereus  and  archiereus  came  into  ordinary  use  in  Lycaonian 
epigraphy  as  technical  Christian  terms,  it  seems  more  prob- 
able that  here  we  have  a  Christian  epitaph  involving  the 
distinction  between  clergy  and  laity.  The  bare  words  hiereus 
and  hierissa  seem  not  to  be  in  keeping  with  a  pagan 
epitaph.  In  pagan  usage  a  hiereus  belonged  to  the  worship 
of  one  deity,  and  as  a  rule  either  the  name  of  the  god  to 
whom  the  hiereus  belonged  was  expressed,  or  the  context  or 
situation  left  no  doubt  as  to  what  deity  and  cult  the  hiereus 
was  attached.  At  one  of  the  great  sanctuaries  {Hiera)  of 
Anatolia,  where  a  single  supreme  priest  stood  at  the  head 
of  the  college  of  priests  as  representative  of  the  god,  it 
would  be  natural  and  was  quite  common  to  state  a  date 
"in  the  time  when  Noumenios  was  priest"  without  men- 
tioning in  any  part  of  the  document  the  deity  or  the  cult ; 
but  the  situation  and  facts  in  that  case  left  no  doubt,  for 
dating  was  practised  only  according  to  the  one  supreme 
priest.     Similarly,    archiereus  is  often   used  absolutely,  be- 

1  Laodicea,  No.  7  (Athen.  Mittkeil.,  1888,  p.  237). 


392  XII.    The  Ckmrh  of  Lycaonia 

cause  it  was  a  perfectly  distinctive  term,  inasmuch  as  there 
wa';  only  one  archiereus  in  the  city  or  district.  But  the  use 
of  the  bare  terms  hiereus  and  hierissa  in  an  ordinary  pagan 
epitaph  in  a  city  where  there  must  have  been  many  priests 
and  hierissai  seems  so  contrary  to  custom  and  difficult  of 
understanding  that  it  cannot  be  admitted  with  our  present 
knowledge.  Yet  it  is  perhaps  strange  that  T.  Lorentius 
(popular  pronunciation  of  Laurentius)  and  Mania  were  priest 
and  priestess,  perhaps  a  bishop  and  his  wife,  in  Laodicea 
not  later  than  about  360  A.D. 

The  explanation  of  these  difficulties  possibly  is  that  this 
inscription  belongs  either  to  the  pagan  reaction  A.D.  303-31 1, 
or  to  the  time  of  Julian,  A.D.  363-365,  when  something  similar 
occurred.  There  was  then  a  tendency  to  model  pagan  in- 
stitutions, epitaphs,  etc.,  on  the  established  Christian  usages  ; 
and  we  may  suppose  that  the  distinction  of  priest  and  laity 
was  like  many  other  Christian  customs  caught  up  by  the 
pagan  revivalists.^ 

It  would  certainly  be  impossible  to  take  hierissa  in  this 
epitaph  as  indicating  a  special  official  position  in  the  Church. 
If  the  inscription  is  Christian,  hierissa  can  only  mean  "  wife 
of  a  priest".  This  might,  perhaps,  be  best  explained  as 
belonging  to  a  quite  early  stage,  when  terminology  was 
not  properly  settled  and  understood,  and  when  the  pagan 
custom,  that  man  and  wife  should  hold  the  offices  of  high- 
priest  and  high-priestess,^  was  still  not  forgotten.  It  seems, 
however,  to  have  a  parallel  in  No.  4,  1.  15. 

22.  The  interpretation  might  be  defended  by  an  inscrip- 
tion of  Isaura  Nova.  (Miss  Ramsay  in  Journal  of  Hellenic 
Studies^  1904,  p.  283). 

^  On  this  most  interesting  phase  of  religion,  which  has  never  been  properly 
studied,  see  a  paper  in  Pauline  and  other  Studies,  p.  103  ff. 
-See  Classical  Review,  Nov.,  1905,  p.  417. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  393 

Doxa  Oikonomeissa  the  revered  {(reyait]). 

In  this  case  also  it  is  improbable  that  oikonomissa  indi- 
cated a  special  official  position  in  the  Church.  It  may  per- 
haps be  interpreted  "  wife  of  an  oikonomos  "}  But  perhaps 
the  oikonomissa  may  have  been  an  official  in  a  nunnery. 
This  epitaph  is  of  the  later  type  which  probably  began 
about  A.D.  360 ;  and  there  may  have  been  a  convent  at 
Isaura  Nova  as  early  as  A.D.  400. 

Similarly,  Presbyterissa  would  perhaps  have  to  be  taken 
as  the  wife  of  a  Presbyter ;  but  its  occurrence  is  uncertain. 
The  index  of  the  Corpus  of  Greek  inscriptions  quotes  it  from 
No.  8624;  but  it  depends  there  on  a  restoration,  which  is 
quite  incorrect  and  unjustified  by  the  copy.  The  Lexicon 
of  Stephanus  quotes  it  once,  but  the  place  does  not  bear  on 
our  purpose.  If  the  inscriptions,  which  name  many  Presby- 
ters and  their  wives,  never  use  the  term  Presbyterissa,  this 
would  go  far  to  show  that  a  Presbyter's  wife  did  not  share 
his  title  in  Lycaonia.     See  p.  365. 

VIII.  These  cases  suggest  the  question  whether  Diako- 
nissa  in  the  inscriptions  of  Lycaonia  may  mean  simply  the 
wife  of  a  Diakonos,  and  not  an  official.  In  one  case  two 
sons  raise  the  tomb  to  their  mother  Nonna,  Diakonissa.^ 
Another  would  probably  be  a  test  case,  but  the  language  is 
so  ungrammatical  as  to  be  practically  unintelligible.  It  is 
the  epitaph  of  two  persons,  styled  the  excellent  (and)  blessed 
(dead),  Flavius  Alexander  and  Amia  Diakonissa,  belonging 
probably  to  the  latter  part  of  the  fourth  century,  or  the 
early  fifth.^     Here  Alexander  and  Amia  are  certainly  hus- 

1  Oikonomos  is  used  as  feminine  (like  Diakonos  for  Diakonissa)  in  the  long 
metrical  epitaph  of  Nestor  the  Presbyter  and  Oikonomos,  No.  4.  The  wife 
of  Nestor  is  there  styled  Oikonomos,  like  her  husband. 

■2  Anderson  in  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies,  1899,  p.  130,  No.  155. 

*  Anderson,  ibid.,  1898,  p.  126,  No.  89. 


394  XI I.   The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

band  and  wife.  Alexander  has  no  official  title ;  but  the 
doubt  remains  whether  the  omission  is  due  merely  to  help- 
lessness and  inadvertence,  the  uneducated  composer  having 
a  vague  idea  that  the  title  Diakonissa  might  imply  also  that 
the  husband  had  corresponding  rank.  If  that  could  be  as- 
sumed, the  case  would  be  conclusive  that  the  official  title  of 
the  husband  was  communicated  to  the  wife.  But  it  is  more 
probable  that  Alexander  held  no  office,  and  Amia  was 
deaconess  in  her  own  right. 

Less  uncertainty  attaches  to  another  case. 

23.  Zazadin  Khan  (Cronin  m  Journal  of  Hellenic  StudieSy 

1902,  p.  359)- 

Quintus,  son  of  Heraklios,  headman  of  the  village,  with 

his  wife    Matrona    and    his    children    Anicetus   and 

Catillus,  all  four  lie  here  in  the  tomb ;  and  the  wife 

of  Anicetus,  Basilissa,  a   diakonos,  constructed    the 

pleasing  ^  tomb  along  with  her  only  son  Nemetorius, 

still  an  infant.^ 

Here  the  husband  Anicetus  has  no  title,  and  we  cannot 

suppose  that  the  title  of  Basilissa  implied  his  official  position. 

We  must   assume  that   she  was  deaconess  during  the   life 

of  her  husband,  who  held  no  official  rank.     The  tomb  was 

evidently  erected  immediately  after  his  death.     Considering 

that  marriages  were  ordinarily  entered  on  at  an  early  age, 

we  must  regard  it  as  probable  that  Basilissa  was  still  young 

when  she  made  the  grave. 

24.  In  confirmation  of  the  previous  epitaphs  showing  that  a 
deaconess  was  sometimes  wife  of  a  person  who  held  no  office 
in  the  Church,  we  may  quote  Laodicea,  No.  65  : — 

*  dpcffrdj,   not  ipitTTOS. 

-  Basilissa  is  called  ^iixkovos,  not  ZnxKovitrira,  perhaps  for  euphony ;  but  the 
form  diakonos  often  occurs  where  no  such  reason  is  possible. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  395 


Here  lies   Appas,  the   Reader  (the  younger  tall  son  of 
Faustinus),   to  whom    his  mother   Aurelia  Faustina 
the  Deaconess  erected  this  heroon  ^  in  remembrance. 
From  these  examples  we  must  generalise  the  principle 
that  in  Lycaonia  diakonissa  (or  diakonos  in  feminine)  always 
denoted  an  official  in  the  Church ;  and  from  the  number  of 
cases  that  occur,  we  must  conclude  that  there  were  deacon- 
esses as  a  rule  in  every  congregation. 

IX.  An  interesting  little  epitaph  is  the  following  from 
Tyriaion  : — 

25.  Here  lies  {sic  l^  Heraklius  and  Patricius  and  Poly- 
karpus  Presbyters :  in  remembrance. 

It  is  remarkable  to  find  three  presbyters  in  a  common 
grave.  The  reason  may  probably  be  that  they  perished 
together  in  a  persecution  (like  the  five  Phrygian  *'  children, 
who  at  one  occasion  gained  the  lot  of  life "  :  Cities  and 
Bish.  of  Phr.,  ii.,  p.  730) ;  if  so,  their  death  might  perhaps 
be  placed  during  the  last  persecution,  somewhere  near 
A.D.  3(X) ;  but,  as  that  would  carry  the  initial  formula  back 
further  than  we  have  hitherto  put  it,  we  must  regard  the 
point  as  uncertain.  There  is,  of  course,  no  reason  why  the 
Latin  formula  should  not  have  been  imitated  in  Lycaonia 
as  early  as  A.D,  300. 

X.  The  criterion  by  which  in  Phrygia  many  early  Christian 
inscriptions  reveal  their  religion — the  concluding  curse 
against  the  violator  of  the  tomb  in  some  such  form  as 
"he  shall  have  to  reckon  with  God"  '^ — is  almost  entirely 
wanting  in  Lycaonia,  where  such  imprecations  are  rarely 
appended  to  epitaphs.     One  example  is  published  by  Mr. 

^  Athen.  Mittheil.,  xiii.,  p.  254.     Read  a.vT)yip({y'\  for  a/'i7-yip[0]ij :  the  two 
letters  €H  are  better  read  thus:  the  formula  is  thus  more  typical. 
'^iarai  avrtf  irpjs  rlv  6f6v. 


396  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

Cronin  from  the  copy  of  a  Greek  physician,  Mr.  Savas 
Diamantides,  ending  with  the  words,  "Whosoever  shall  force 
an  entrance,  shall  give  account  to  God  ".^  The  exact  proven- 
ance of  this  epitaph  is  uncertain  ;  but  other  examples  occur 
in  northern  Lycaonia  ;  and  there  can  therefore  be  no  doubt 
that  in  the  region  which  was  most  immediately  under  the 
influence  of  Iconian  Christianity,  several  varieties  of  this 
kind  of  Christianised  imprecation  were  at  one  time  in  use. 
The  reason  why  it  was  far  comm6ner  in  Phrygia  than  in 
Lycaonia  must  be  that  it  was  an  early  formula,  which  passed 
into  disuse  in  the  fourth  century.  The  Lycaonian  inscrip- 
tions, therefore,  which  belong  as  a  rule  to  the  fourth  century, 
rarely  use  it ;  some  of  the  Lycaonian  epitaphs  in  which  it 
occurs  belong  beyond  all  doubt  to  that  century,  proving  that 
it  lingered  on  in  a  sporadic  way. 

26,  Another  example  of  the  curse  against  violators  of  the 
tomb  is  the  following  from  Laodicea,  No.  45  '^ : — 

The  priest  (hiereus)  of  the  Trinity,  Hesychius,  wise,  true, 
faithful  worker  .  .  .  and  if  any  one  shall  lay  another 
in  the  tomb,  he  shall  render  judicial  account  to  the 
living  Judge. 
The  opening  formula  is  of  the  later  class,  the  allusion  to 
a  priest  of  the  Trinity  is  of  the  developed  ecclesiastical  type, 
and  the  simple  cross  at  the  beginning  is  not  early ;  and  yet 
the  concluding  expression  cannot  be  placed  with  any  prob- 
ability later  than  about  A.D.  400,  as  this  originally  pagan, 
and  in  the  strict  sense  non-Christian,  habit  of  curse  seems 
to  be  inconsistent  with  developed  Christian  custom,  which 

» 5&j<r€i  Q((f  \6yov,  Journ.  Hell.  Stud.,  1902,  p.  354. 

'■'Athcn.  Mittkeil.,  xiii.,  p.  249,  6  rns  TpidSos  Upvs  (!)      'Ha-vx'os  <roiphs  aA.ij- 

Oris  vKTrhs  ipydrr]!   .  ir  .  .  w,  M[-n]i'6(piKos  [re ].      ij  ris  f  irepoi'  iireufiiXri 

ra,  rd<i>cf)  Kpir^  r^  i<>>vri  \6yov  fvSiKou  iro[t]^[<re<.  Iambics  are  rare  in  epi- 
tapns  :  the  last  word  is  doubtful. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  397 


no    longer    set    such    value    on    the    inviolability    of    the 
grave. 

27.  Another  example,  probably  of  the  same  period,  occurs 
at  Laodicea  (No.  18)  : — 

,  son  of  Valerianus,  quaestor,  erected  the  inscription, 

while  still  living,  to  my  sweetest  wife  Flavia  Sosanna 
and  my  foster-child  Sophronia  in  remembrance :  if 
any  one  shall  put  another  in  (the  tomb),  he  shall  give 
account  to  God. 

28.  Here  may  be  given  in  the  way  of  contrast  a  developed 
Christian  form  of  curse,  from  a  rock  in  Phrygia  near  the 
site  of  Leontos  Kephalai  (see  p.  140).  It  was  copied  by 
Professor  Garstang  of  Liverpool.  It  belongs  to  a  later  time 
and  style  than  the  Lycaonian  epitaphs.  There  is  a  large 
cross  at  the  beginning.^ 

May  he  [who  disturbs  the  tomb],  and  the  accomplice 
privy  to  the  act,  and  .  .  .  have  the  curse  of  the  three 
hundred  and  eighteen  fathers. 

The  318  fathers  were  the  bishops  present  at  the  first 
Council  of  Nice,  A.D.  325 ;  but  the  use  of  the  curse  is  dis- 
tinctly later  than  the  holding  of  the  Council.  It  is  remark- 
able that  in  Phrygia  the  Christian  inscriptions  are  for  the 
most  part  either  very  early  or  quite  late.  There  is  a  marked 
absence  of  fourth  century  epitaphs  ;  and  the  reason  for  this 
is  found  in  the  virulence  with  which  Diocletian's  persecution 
was  carried  out  in  Phrygia  {Cities  and  Bisk.,  ii.,  p.  505).  In 
Lycaonia,  for  some  reason  or  other,  probably  the  difference 
of  character  in  the  governor  of  the  Province  Pisidia,  the 
persecution  was  apparently  much  less  severe  (see  p.  345). 

XI.  A  small  series  of  inscriptions  relates  to  that  interesting 

firria<TTr)iiovos  ke.  .  .  .  The  Greek  is  bad  and  late. 


]gS>  XII.    T/ie  Church  of  Lycaonia 


but  enigmatical  institution  in  the  early  Church,  the  Parthenoi 
or  Virgins.     One  of  these  was  found  at  Drya.^ 

29.  Aur.    Matrona    (daughter)    of    Strabo,    to   her   own 
daughter,  a  Virgin,  Douda,  erected  in  remembrance. 

The  name  Matrona  occurs  not  infrequently  in  Christian 
Lycaonian  inscriptions.  It  is  not  in  keeping  with  ancient 
custom  that  the  epithet  Parthenos  should  be  added  in  a 
pagan  inscription  in  prose  simply  to  show  that  Douda  died 
unmarried;  I  know  nothing  to  justify  such  an  opinion. 
The  word  must  be  taken  in  the  ecclesiastical  sense. 

30.  The  following  inscription  of  Laodicea  (found  at  Serai- 
Inn  in  1904)  is  probably  of  the  late  fourth  century  : — 

Here  has  been  laid  to  rest  she  who  was  kind  to  mortals 
and  beauteous  in  form,  by  name  Zoe,  whom  all  held 
in  great  honour ;  and  to  her  a  tomb  was  built  by  her 
husband   and   also  by    her   sister,    Varelianos   with 
Theosebia,   very   pious    Virgin,   a   memory  of  the 
generation  of  men,  for  that  is  the  privilege  of  the 
dead.^ 
The  abbreviation   of    an    already    stereotyped    epithet, 
€vXa^{€i)  or   6v\a^{eaTarrj),    proves    that    "  Virgin "  must 
here  be  taken  in   its   technical  sense   as   an    ecclesiastical 
term.     The  prose  epithet,  "  friend  of  all,"  which  is  charac- 
teristic  of  Christian    epitaphs,^    is    here    transformed    for 

'  The  most  northern  town  of  Lycaonia.  The  epitaph  is  published  in  Journ. 
of  Hell.  Stu4ies,  1899,  p.  121  (Anderson). 

2«Vfla5«  KiKriSevre  <piX6^poros  ayKadfxopcpos 
oijvofia  {Si)  ZSri  Tr\v  ir€pTif(TKOv  airavres 
TV  5'  &pa  Tvvfiov  eSi/iau  ebs  irSffis  ■^5'  o^'  a.Se\<pri, 
OvapeKiavhs  arvv  ©eoffffiij)  f iAa/8.   iTapQ(V((>, 
fjLffi/xTjv  avSpiiv  yevfrjs,  rb  yap  ytpas  iffn  6avovr<i>v, 
In  1.  2  Se  was  omitted  by  fault  of  composer  or  engraver ;  but  the  metre 
requires  it.     In  1.  i  5  was  inserted,  but  the  metre  rejects  it. 
*  See  above,  p.  375. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  399 

metrical   reasons   into    the   much    poorer    term    "  kind    to 
mortals  ", 

The  date  of  this  inscription  is  proved,  also,  both  by  the 
late  formula,  and  by  the  shape  of  the  stone,  which  I  have 
observed  only  in  the  later  Christian  tombs  :  it  is  not  a  simple 
stele  of  the  earlier  class  with  pointed  or  rounded  or  square 
top,  but  one  with  a  rude  resemblance  to  a  Herm,  with  cir- 
cular head  springing  from  broad  shoulders.  On  the  head- 
piece is  incised  an  ornament  like  a  six-leaved  rosette,  which 
was  probably  understood  by  the  Christians  as  an  elaboration 
of  the  old  monogrammatic  symbol  :*: ,  i.e.  'I{7](tov<;)  X{ptcrT6<i) ; 
yet  the  occurrence  of  the  older  formula  in  1.  3  makes  it 
unsafe  to  date  the  tomb  later  than  370  or  380,  on  the  prin- 
ciples which  we  have  been  following.  Although  the  tech- 
nical term  euXa/3.  in  abbreviation  is  a  mark  of  lateness, 
yet  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  Basil  would  have  written  in 
that  way;  and  we  may  safely  admit  that  the  usage  may 
have  been  practised  as  early  as  A.D.  375,  in  epigraphy  as 
well  as  in  handwriting. 
.    A  third  is  one  of  a  pair  found  at  Laodicea : — 

31,  32.  Gains  Julius  Patricius  erected  to  my  sweetest 
aunt  Orestina,  who  lived  in  continence,^  in  remem- 
brance. 

Gains  Julius  Patricius  erected  this  inscription  to  my  dear- 
est brother  Mnesitheos  in  remembrance. 

This  pair  of  inscriptions  on  one  stone  is  certainly  early. 
The  letters  are  fine  and  good,  the  formula  is  of  the  earlier 
class,  and  the  full  Roman  name  seems  to  have  disappeared 
from  popular  use  in  this  region  during  the  fourth  century. 
The  widening  of  the  area  of  Roman  citizenship  by  Carr.calla 
about  212,  by  giving  every  free  man  a  right  to  the  Roman 

^ivKpanyaofiiirn  (Ath.  MittheiL,  1888,  p.  272).     Compare  No.  16  above. 


400  XII.   The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

citizenship  and  the  full  Roman  name,  destroyed  its  distinc- 
tiveness and  honourable  character. 

XII.  It  would  not  be  safe  to  regard  the  word  ivKparevaa- 
^evT}  here  as  necessarily  a  proof  that  Orestina  stood  apart 
from  the  Orthodox  and  Catholic  Church,  or  was  connected 
with  any  definite  Enkratite  sect  or  system.  The  use  of  the 
word  evKpdreta  twice  in  the  long  metrical  epitaph  of  the 
Presbyter  Nestor,  quoted  below,  shows  clearly  that  no  ex- 
travagant asceticism  is  implied  by  these  terms,  for  in  one 
case  the  quality  is  ascribed  to  the  Presbyter's  wife.  But  the 
following  hitherto  unpublished  epitaph  found  near  Laodicea 
shows  that  there  was  in  that  city  a  congregation  of  sect- 
arian character,  probably  with  Enkratite  tendencies,  and 
it  may  well  be  that  Orestina  belonged  to  that  congrega- 
tion. 

33.  Doudousa,  daughter  of  Menneas,  son  of  Gaianos,  who 
became  He(gou)menos  of  the  holy  and  pure  Church 
of  God,  to  Aur.   Tata  my  much  beloved  daughter 
and  only  child  erected  this  tombstone,  and  of  my- 
self in  my  lifetime  in  remembrance.^ 
Here  beyond  all  question  Doudousa  is  described  (regard- 
less of  gender)  as  the  Hegoumenos  of  the  holy  pure  Church 
of  God.     She  seems  to  have  been  one  of  those  female  leaders 
of  unorthodox  religious  movements,  so  many  of  whom  are 
known  in  Asia  Minor,  from  the  lady  of  Thyatira(Rev.  ii.  20) 
downwards.     It  is  hardly  possible  to  regard  a  female  leader 
as   belonging  to  the    Orthodox    Church;  and  the   epithet 
"pure"  applied  to  the  Church  in  which  she  was  a  leader 

'AouSoucra,  6vyaT[rip  M]evvfov  ra[MPOv  ?,  yeivlaufvri  l(yov)nevoi  Ttjs  aytlas 
[Kf]  Kadapas  tov  6(eo)v  eKXrjffeias,  Avp.  Tora  tt)  TroA.inroSfii'OTOTp  *cf  /xoifoyfvfj  fj.ov 
Btryarpl  aviffrriffa  rijv  l(Tri\\y]v  touttji/  k(  iavrris  ^iuffa  fiyrifiris  X"^/""-  ^^^  ''^'^ 
itifvos,  though  not  marked  as  an  abbreviation  (whereas  ©i  is),  can  hardly  be 
for  anything;  except  Tjyovnevos:  the  masculine  form  is  remarkable. 


in  the  Fourth  Cenhcry  401 

seems  perhaps  to  lay  more  emphasis  on  the  ascetic  tendency 
than  the  orthodox  opinion  approved. 

"  The  Holy  Church  of  God  "  is  an  expression  that  shows 
the  fully  formed  ecclesiastical  expression,  and  can  hardly  be 
dated  earlier  than  the  latter  part  of  the  fourth  century.  Its 
first  employment  as  a  common  phrase  cannot  be  placed  later 
than  A.D.  400,  and  is  probably  earlier,  for  we  find  it  in  an 
inscription  copied  by  Hamilton  {C.I.G.,  9268). 

34.  Aurelia  Domna  erected  to  my  sweetest  husband 
Tinoutos,  the  very  pious  deacon  of  the  Holy  Church 
of  God  of  the  Novatians,  in  remembrance. 

The  formula  is  of  the  early  type.  The  pranomen  Aur, 
is  used,  and  the  name  Novatians  in  open  use  implies  a  date 
at  least  earlier  than  A.D.  420,  when  the  sect  and  the  name 
were  proscribed.  I  should  confidently  regard  this  inscrip- 
tion as  older  than  A.D,  340. 

35.  In  324-5  Gregory,  father  of  the  more  famous  Gregory 
Nazianzus,  was  converted  from  the  sect  of  the  Hypsistarii 
to  the  Orthodox  Church.  The  sect  took  its  name  from  its 
worship  of  the  Most  High  God  alone  (^eo9  v-^KJTO'i) ;  it  is  said 
to  have  adored  light  and  fire,  but  to  have  used  neither  sacri- 
fice nor  images  of  God,  to  have  kept  the  Sabbath  and  cer- 
tain rules  of  clean  and  unclean  foods,  but  not  to  have 
practised  circumcision.  Gregory  of  Nyssa  about  380 
speaks  of  a  sect  Hypsistianoi,  who  adored  the  one  God, 
styling  him  Hypsistos  or  Pantokrator,  but  not  Father.^ 
Neither  sect  (if  they  are  two  sects,  and  not  one)  can  be 
traced  in  that  precise  form  outside  of  Cappadocia  About 
them  we  have  only  the  untrustworthy  account  contained  in  the 
brief  allusions  of  two  of  their  opponents,  whose  hatred  for 

'^Contra  Eunom.,  ed.  Migne,  vol.  ii.,  p.  482  ff.  Pantokrator  is  used  in 
No.  I. 

26 


402  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

the  Hypsistianoi  makes  it  difficult  to  regard  what  they  say 
as  a  fair  account. 

It  is  possible  that  the  inscriptions  of  Iconium  may  throw 
some  light  on  this  obscure  sect.  There  is  every  probability 
that  a  Cappadocian  sect  should  spread  also  into  Lycaonia, 
for  there  is  no  natural  line  of  demarcation  in  the  dead  level 
plain  where  the  frontier  of  the  two  Provinces  lay.  The 
epitaph  quoted  on  p.  389  may  commemorate  a  priest  or 
bishop  of  the  sect.  At  any  rate  it  probably  originated  in 
circumstances  similar  to  those  which  produced  the  Cappa- 
docian sect.  Gourdos  is  in  that  epitaph  called  "priest  of 
the  most  high  God  " ;  ^  but  the  style  and  character  of  the 
■document  seems  to  permit  no  doubt  that  it  is  Christian  and 
did  not  emanate  from  a  half-pagan,  half-Jewish  eclectic  sect, 
such  as  the  two  Gregories  describe.  It  is  probable  that 
their  denial  of  the  Christian  character  of  the  sect  was  merely 
the  result  of  prejudice  and  ill-feeling,  and  that  the  Iconian 
epitaph  is  a  fairer  and  safer  witness  to  the  character  of  the 
Hypsistarii  than  the  malignant  account  of  ecclesiastical 
enemies.  If  our  opinion  be  not  correct,  the  only  alter- 
native probably  is  that  the  epitaph  originated  in  ordinary 
Christian  circles,  where  the  Cappadocian  sect  was  unknown 
and  where  the  typical  epithet  (which  in  Cappadocia  would 
have  proved  the  sect)  was  used  as  a  right  and  orthodox 
term,  occurring  often  in  the  Bible.  But  see  No.  36. 
36.  A  second  epitaph  partakes  of  the  same  character — 
The  God  of  the  tribes  of  Israel.  Here  lie  the  bones  of 
the  prudent  deacon  Paul ;  and  we  adjure  the  Almighty 
God  [to  punish  any  violator  of  the  tomb?].^ 

^  J«p€i»s  fleoC  v^larox)  (where  the  metre  would  require  v-^iaroio). 
*CJ.G.,  9270.    The  copy  of  Lukas  has  4fwTuy  instead  odv\a>v.    The  cor- 
rection made  in  the  Corpus  is  probably  right.     Compare  Nos.  26-28. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  403 


The  abbreviations  0C  and  0N  for  God  mark  this  as  the 
product  of  a  more  developed  thought  than  most  of  the  epi- 
taphs of  Lycaonia.  Here  the  other  typical  epithet  Panto- 
krator  is  used.  The  occurrence  in  two  Iconian  epitaphs  of 
the  two  epithets  marking  the  Cappadocian  sect  favours  the 
opinion  that  both  inscriptions  originate  from  a  branch  of  the 
Hypsistarii  in  Iconium.  It  is  however  possible  that  this 
second  epitaph  originated  in  a  Jewish  circle,  though  the  most 
probable  view  perhaps  is  that  a  branch  of  the  Jewish  Chris- 
tians survived  in  Lycaonia,  and  were  nicknamed  Hypsistarii 
by  the  "  orthodox  "  Christians  of  the  fourth  century  from 
their  fondness  for  that  favourite  Jewish  phrase,  "  the  most 
High " :  they  had  been  so  far  influenced  by  surrounding 
opinion  as  to  abandon  circumcision. 

Xni.  Deve-yuklu  (Sarre,  Reise  in  Kleinasien,  p.  174; 
A.  E,  Mitth.  Oest.,  xix.,  31   fif.). 

37,  Here  lies  Palladius,  p(resbyter  ?)  and  high-priest  of  God 
for  us  :  readers,  pray  for  me.^ 

If  the  initial  letter  is  rightly  completed  as  "presbyter" 
(and  I  see  no  other  way),  the  title  high-priest,  which  seems 
more  suited  to  the  bishop,  is  given  to  a  presbyter.  Perhaps 
we  have  here  also  a  trace  of  some  non-Orthodox  sect.  The 
concluding  formula  is  of  developed  Christian  style;  and  the 
epitaph  is  of  the  fifth  century  or  later. 

XIV.  The  following  epitaph,  engraved  on  the  tomb  of  a 
physician  at  Alkaran,  near  Isaura  Nova,  probably  belongs  to 
the  period  A.D.  330-350.  The  first  two  lines  are  in  rude 
metre :  the  last  two  are  in  prose  : — 

38.  Here  earth  contains  Aur.  Priscus,  who  was  an  excellent 
physician  during  the  sixty  years  of  his  age.      And 

^tvTa  KaroKiTf  HaXefSts  v{peffPiTfpos7)  ««  ipxt^p^vs  rod  Btov  jjfiTv  ■   v  avayiyw- 

VKOVTfS   (C^affTf   VTTfp  ifiov. 


404  XII,    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

(his  tomb)  was  erected  by  his  son  Timotheos  and  his 
own  consort  Alexandria,  in  honour  {Figure,  p.  330).^ 
This  inscription  is  engraved  above  an  elaborate  ornamenta- 
tion, partly  incised,  partly  in  relief,  varied  from  the  usual 
Isauran  architectural  scheme.  There  are  the  usual  four 
columns  supporting  three  pediments  or  arches,  which,  in  this 
case,  are  all  rounded. ^  In  each  of  the  three  spaces  between 
the  four  columns  is  a  fish.  The  central  arch  is  filled  with 
the  common  shell  pattern  ;  the  other  two  contain  a  doubtful 
symbol,  perhaps  a  large  fir-cone. 

The  ornament  is  executed  in  rude  village  work,  quite 
different  from  the  fine  lines  of  the  Dorla  (Isauran)  work, 
and  implying  the  existence  of  the  latter  as  model.  Epi- 
graphical  reasons  point  to  the  same  conclusion.  The  formula 
"  Here  Ihe  earth  contains "  is  a  mere  poetic  variation  of 
"  Here  lies,"  the  later  formula  which  took  the  place  of  the 
older  formula  stating  that  "  so-and-so  made  the  tomb,"  or 
"  honoured  "  or  "  set  up  "  the  deceased.  These  circumstances 
point  to  a  later  date.  On  the  other  hand,  the  second  part 
of  the  physician's  epitaph  follows  the  old  formula  :  "his  son 
and  wife  set  up  ".  The  mixture  of  the  old  and  new  formulae, 
and  ih& prcBnomen  Aur.,  give  a  date  about  A.D.  340. 

The  praise  given  in  this  epitaph  to  the  physician  at  the 
end  of  his  long  career  is  quite  in  the  style  of  Basil,  who  says, 
in  writing  to  the  physician  Eustathius  about  A.D.  374: 
"  Humanity  is  the  regular  business  of  all  you  who  practise  as 
physicians.  And,  in  my  opinion,  to  put  your  science  at  the 
head  and  front  of  life's  pursuits  is  to  decide  reasonably  and 
rightly.     This,  at  all  events,  seems  to  be  the  case  if  man's 

^  TiMi  at  the  end :  perhaps  the  beginning  of  ti^utjs  x°P"'>  ^^^  ^^^  available 
space  is  exhausted,  and  the  rest  of  the  stone  is  crowded  with  ornamentation, 
so  that  the  concluding  letters  were  never  engraved. 

^In  the  ordinary  Isauran  scheme,  the  two  side  pediments  are  pointed. 


in  the  Fourth  Cejitury  405 

most  precious  possession,  life,  is  painful  and  not  worth  living 
unless  it  be  lived  in  health,  and  if  for  health  we  are  depend- 
ent on  your  skill "  {Epist.  1 89).^ 

We  notice  also  the  emphasis  which  the  ornamentation  on 
the  tombstone  of  Priscus  lays  on  his  Christian  character. 
The  connection  of  the  physician  with  religion  and  his  interest 
in  it  are  emphasised  in  Basil's  two  letters  to  Eustathius  (151 
and  189).  He  writes:  "  In  your  own  case  medicine  is  seen, 
as  it  were,  with  two  right  hands :  you  enlarge  the  accepted 
limits  of  philanthropy  by  not  confining  the  application  of 
your  skill  to  men's  bodies,  but  by  attending  also  to  the  cure 
of  the  diseases  of  their  souls  "  {Epist.  1 89).-  The  letter  to 
the  physician  Pasinicus  (324)  also  shows  on  what  friendly 
terms  Basil  wrote  to  men  of  this  profession,  and  how  much 
he  seems  to  have  esteemed  their  educated  view  of  life ;  while 
he  corresponded  with  Eustathius  as  a  valued  and  respected 
friend  on  whose  sympathy  he  could  rcly.^ 

39,  A  metrical  epitaph  found  beside  Derbe  may  belong  to 
the  tomb  erected  by  one  of  those  Christian  physicians : — 

Thou  hast  caused  sorrow  to  thy  companions  {i.e.,  by  thy 
death)  and  in  exceeding  degree  to  thy  parents ;  and 
thy  name  is  Herakleon,  son  of  Hermeros,  physician.* 

40.  The  initial  formula  of  No.  38  appears  in  a  somewhat 
more  elaborate  form  in  another  epitaph,  found  near  Isaura 
Nova  in  a  bridge  at  Dinek  Serai  {Journ.  of  Hell.  St.,  1905, 
p.  176)  :— 

1  and '' Translation  of  Mr.  Blomfield  Jackson.  See  Harnack  in  Texte  u. 
Untersuch.,  viii.,  and  list  in  a  review  Anal.  Boll.,  xii.,  297. 

■"'While  respecting  educated  physicians,  Basil  was  not  above  the  belief  in 
cures  by  words  and  charms,  provided  they  were  Christian,  as  the  present 
writer  has  pointed  out  in  more  detail  in  the  Quarterly  Review,  vol.  clxxxvi., 
p.  427  {Pauline  ajui  other  Studies,  p.  380). 

*  MM.  Radet  and  Paris  in  Bull.  Corr.  Hellen.,  1886,  p.  510;  Sterrett,  Wolfe 
Expedition,  p.  28. 


4o6  XII.    The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

Here  the  bounteous  earth,  taking  him  to  her  bosom,  con- 
tains Papas,  who  lived  a  just  one  among  men,  and 
whom  Vanalis,  his  daughter,  honoured  with  monu- 
ment and    beauteous    muse,   longing   for   the  dead 
one. 
The  imitation  marks  the  two  epitaphs  as  of  the  same  period, 
which  is  proved  also  by  the  presence  in  both  of  the  new 
formula  followed  by  the  old.     As  one  epitaph  is  Christian, 
the  other  may  confidently  be  set  down  as  also  Christian. 

XV.  Allusions  to  the  words  of  the  Bible  are  rare  in  the 
epitaphs .  compare  No.  5  and  the  following. 

41.  Dikaios,  measurer  of  corn  for  distribution,  raised  the 
stele  to  his  wife  Mouna,  after  a  wedded  life  of  23  years, 
[  ]  months,  20  days,  and  made  (the  tomb)  for  himself 
in  his  life-time.  And  the  sarcophagus  belongs  to  Him 
who  knocks  where  the  door  stands  before  Him. 

The  allusion  to  Revelation  iii.  20,  "  Behold,  I  stand  at  the 
door  and  knock,"  seems  indubitable  ;  though  the  Greek 
shows  rather  less  similarity  than  the  English.^  It  is  possible 
that  on  the  broken  ornament  of  the  top  a  personal  name  was 
engraved,  and  then  the  first  line  should  be  translated  "  a  just 
measurer  of  com  ".  But  Dikaiosyne  occurs  as  a  woman's 
name  in  a  neighbouring  village,  and  Dikaios  is  sometimes 
found  as  a  man's  name  and  probably  so  used  here. 

42.  An  epitaph  from  Suwerek,  if  the  restoration  be  on  the 
right  lines,  is  important ;  and  I  should  be  glad  to  elicit  either 
criticism  or  corroboration.     See  Fig.  7,  p.  330. 

Aurelius  Alexander  [son  of  Alexander?],  hoping  in  the 

'  Kpovw  and  eiTTrj/co  eirl  in  Rev.  iii.  20,  kJittw  and  iiri<TTr)Ktv  (sic)  in  the 
epitaph ;  but  the  latter  is  composed  by  an  uneducated  villager,  who  made 
(tJxTojyoj  the  gen.  of  K6vra)v,  and  remembered  badly  the  words  of  the  New 
Testament :  he  spoke  Phrygian,  not  Greek. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  407 

after-life  and  joy,  while  living  and  of  sound  mind, 
made  for  himself  a  resting-place  in  remembrance.^ 
This  is  an  epitaph  of  the  earliest  class,  and  may  quite  prob- 
ably belong  to  the  third  century.  The  formula,  apart  from 
the  Christian  hope,  is  of  the  early  style,  and  the  use  of 
Aurelius  as  prcenomen  was  commoner  in  the  third  century 
than  in  the  fourth.  The  ornamentation  shows  the  sym- 
metrical use  of  crosses :  compare  No.  6  and  Studies  in  the 
Eastern  Provinces,  p.  90. 

XVI.  The  phrase  "  slave  of  God,"  Zovko<i  deov,  is  the  com- 
monest in  Byzantine  epitaphs.  Examples  occur  from  about 
A.D.  4C0  or  earlier  to  the  latest  time.  Expressions,  similar  in 
.sense  but  different  in  word,  should  be  dated  in  the  third  or 
fourth  century,  before  the  common  form  was  established. 
The  phrase  "slave  of  Christ,"  is,  evidently,  later  than 
"slave  of  God,"  as  being  more  remote  from  pagan  forms 
of  expression.  The  latter  might  quite  conceivably  be  used 
by  a  pagan,  though  I  cannot  quote  any  case  in  which  it  was 
so  used.  The  only  inscription  known  to  me  in  which 
So£/Xo9  XpicTTov  occurs,  is  marked  beyond  question  by 
other  characteristics  as  of  the  developed  Byzantine  period ; 
the  title  "  Comes "  occurs,  and  the  detestable  spelling 
(occurring  not  in  rude  village  work,  but  on  the  tomb  of  a 
high  officer)  shows  that  the  epitaph  is  likely  to  be  of  the 
seventh  century  or  even  later. 

43.  At  Laodicea,  published  in  At/ten.  Mittheil.,  1885,  p.  43. 

Athenodorus,  house-servant  of  God,  and  Aelia  Eupatra  his 
wife  while  in  life  (prepared  the  grave)  for  themselves. 

^  A  better  restoration  is  suggested  by  my  friend  Mr.  W.  R.  Paton,  dilTering 
very  slightly  from  that  in  the  illustration ;  cp.  i  Pet.  i.  13  ;  iii.  17  ;  Tit.  i.  2 : — 

Airp  .  'A\€fo»'5p[os  5ij],  tXiriVas  tVl  [tV  t^s  eireijra  C<^^^  X'*P<^[''>  C'^''  t*  t]«J 
^poywv  K[arf(rKfva<r(v  f^avru  Koifir)TTi[piop  cVOoSc]  /xi'iiii.rjs  x<^p[^>'' 


4o8  XI I.   The  Church  of  Lycaonia 

The  term  "house-servant  of  God"  (oUirrjii  ©eov)  in 
itself  might  quite  fairly  be  taken  as  a  mere  refinement  of 
the  commoner  "slave  of  God,"  and  therefore ,  later  in 
origin ;  but  such  an  opinion  is  refuted  by  the  character  of 
this  inscription,  which  is  expressed  in  the  earlier  class  of 
formula,  mentioning  first  the  name  of  the  maker  of  the 
tomb.  The  names,  too,  are  of  an  early  type,  especially  the 
name  of  the  wife  Aelia  Eupatra  ;  and  we  may  feel  confident 
that  the  inscription  must  be  as  early  as  the  fourth,  and  more 
probably  the  third,  century.  Looking  at  the  style  of  letters, 
and  the  general  impression  given  by  the  inscription  as  a 
whole,  I  should  be  inclined  to  place  it  in  the  third  century. 

The  strange  phrase  "  house-servant  of  God  "  (ot/cerT;?  deov) 
might  be  interpreted  by  some  as  a  variation  of  the  technical 
"  home-born  slave  of  Caesar  "  {verna  Cessans).  But  the  term 
Divus,  6e6<i,  was  applied  only  to  a  deceased  emperor ;  and 
it  is  contrary  to  an  otherwise  unbroken  rule  to  speak  of  a 
slave  of  the  deified  deceased  emperor.  At  the  same  time  it 
must  be  noted  that  many  slaves  of  the  emperor  occur  in 
epitaphs  of  Laodicea  and  the  neighbourhood  :  they  resided 
there  to  manage  the  estates  and  valuable  copper  and  quick- 
silver mines  belonging  to  the  emperors  in  the  mountain 
country  immediately  south  of  the  city.^ 

It  is  also  possible  that  Athenodorus,  to  indicate  his  religion, 
purposely  chose  an  expression  which  was  susceptible  of  an- 
other meaning.     I  have  elsewhere  pointed  out  '^  that  in  the 

^  The  name  Burnt  Laodicea  evidently  arose  from  the  furnaces  for  smelting 
the  copper.  Mr.  Edwin  Whittall  pointed  out  to  me  that  the  ancients  did  not 
refine  the  ore  (cinnabar)  to  extract  the  pure  quicksilver,  but  used  it  in  its  raw 
condition  as  a  colour.  It  was  the  red  earth  of  Cappadocia,  called  yrj  XtvwntK'f], 
because  it  was  brought  to  Greece  by  way  of  Sinope  before  the  land  Trade- 
Route  to  Ephesus  came  into  use. 

2  Cities  and  Bishoprics  of  Phrygia,  ii.,  p.  502. 


in  the  Fourth  Century  409 

earliest  Christian  epitaphs  language  was  often  employed 
which  could  be  taken  in  a  pagan  sense  by  the  uninitiated. 
This  custom  originated  in  the  time  when  it  was  dangerous  to 
profess  Christianity ;  and  after  the  numbers  and  influence  of 
the  Christians  increased  in  any  district,  profession  was  made 
in  more  public  fashion.  If  my  suspicion  be  correct,  this 
would  be  the  earliest  Lycaonian  Christian  epitaph.  From 
the  names  and  style  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be- 
long to  the  second  century.  According  to  ordinary  rule  one 
would  class  it  as  probably  of  that  date. 

The  forms,  attendant,  companion,  servant  or  slave  of 
Christ  {depdircov  6epdirat,va  vary  between  those  meanings ; 
also  7rat9  hoi)\o<i)  are  found  sporadically :  cp.  No.  4 . 

44.  An  example,  found  in  Isauria,  is  published  by  Pro- 
fessor Sterrett  ( Wolfe  Exped.,  p.  60). 

[So-and-so],  while  still  living,  faithful  slave-boy  of  [Jesus] 
Christ,  inscribed  the  stele  for  himself.^ 

45.  Copied  by  my  friend.  Professor  T.  Callander,  at 
Savatra  in  Lycaonia: — 

The  attendant  of  Christ,  Paulus,  I  lie  in  this  tomb,  and 
the  gravestone  was  set  up  by  my  young  sister  Maria 
in  solemn  remembrance  to  me  her  only  brother.^ 

46.  From  the  same  place  and  authority :  it  is  a  mere 
concluding  fragment : — 

the  brothers,  attendants  of  Christ,  constructed.^ 

47.  A  quaint  inscription  found  in  1908  at  Obruk  (perhaps 
the  site  of  Congoustos),  eight  miles  east  of  Perta,  concludes 
our  survey  of  the  Lycaonian  Church. 

*  \t'Ypa\i^(v  iavrcfi  iralfs  'IryeroC  Xptcrrov  ■Ki(Tr6s. 

''XY  dfpa.no.'v  na[D]Aos  fV  rcjiSe  rvfi^cf  KaTa.Ki[fM]e  ffrifia  5e'  fioi  rtv^ev  ijiBeos 
Kaaiyvrtlrri}  Mapi'a  ix.vi\ixr)s  e'iyeKa  ffifjLvi\s  dtip  KaffiyvfiTtfi.  6ipd-ira)v,  like  OTaQif 
in  No.  19,  is  equivalent  to  comes,  subordinate  companion. 

^  Kacriyi'jjToi  XpiffTov  OepdirovTes  trfv^av. 


4IO 


XII.    The  Chu7'ch  of  Lycaonia 


f  Holy  Trinity,  protect  the  order  of  the  deacons.  Amen.^ 
This  text  perhaps  indicates  some  disagreement  between 
the  deacons  and  the  higher  clergy ;  but  other  explanations 
are  possible,  and  I  publish  it  in  hope  of  instruction  on  the 
point.  The  tagma  of  the  clergy  is  mentioned  by  Basil 
(quoted  on  p.  356  note). 

^  ayla  Tpids,  ovttjAojSoD  rov  rdyfiari  riv  5iaK6va)(v)  •  afiiiv.     A  CTOSS  is  CUt 
at  the  beginning  and  a  large  cross  below  the  letters. 


+  MlMNeA 
^lAKOjyiON 

ccnAcHCAPE 

NOCHNFNlBiOO 

4)iANEKTEAfCA 

TorAArTOVrA 

CVNKATAKrrElh 

((AAu)CB)OKE|E 


fa&6.\4)HTro-E 

ToiiETirAON 
XAJ 


oMfvAAB' 

AtONTlKOY 
mCKEKOtHHJ* 

CENeAaCKlTt 
YKEPDCAafeA<|> 
<|)lM0CArA©OE 
re-AECENTUiNA 


|0YCAMECTHCE]«i 
MAPIAMNHMHC 
PIN 


/V 


Fig.  14. — Anthropomorphic  Lycaonian  gravestone  (see  p.  399)  with  cross 
and  rosette  (monogram)  as  corresponding  decorative  elements.  See  pp. 
330,  368  f.,  406  f. 


INDEX. 


Christian  Inscriptions — 

Account  to  God,  giving  of,  396. 
Anthropomorphic  gravestone,  399, 

410. 
Aurelius     as    pseudo-prsenomen, 

338,  386,  390. 
Beginning  of  epigraphy  in  Central 

Anatolia,  335. 
Chronology  of,  334  flf.,  338,  369. 
Church  of  God,  401. 
Concealment  of  Christian  charac- 
ter   shows    early  period,   381, 

408  f. 
Curse  on  violator  of  tomb,  395  ff. 
Fathers  318  of  Nicasa,  397. 
"  Friend  of  all,"  375,  382. 
"  Here  lies,"  337,  338,  388. 
Holy  Church  of  God,  401. 
Reckoning  with  God,  396. 
Salutations  on  gravestones,  362. 
Slave  of  Christ,  of  God,  338,  365, 

407  ff. 
Titles,     growth     of     Byzantine 

Christian,  369,  384,  398. 
Trinity,  396,  410. 
Women's  industry,  387. 

Luke,  3- 1 01,  220-46 — 
Acts,  conclusion  of,  27. 

—  chap.  XV.,  28,  60  f.,  313  f. 

—  credibility  of,  58,  64,  87,  91, 

315  ;  see  Luke  gen. 
Annunciation,  255. 
Authorities,  use  of  his,  58,  71,  80, 

83. 
Birth  narrative,  49  f.,  219,  243-46, 

255- 
Character,  31 ;  see  Hellenism  of. 
Choice  of  details,  21, 
Connection  with  Antioch,  18,  35, 
65-68. 
Ephesus,  21  if.,  35. 

(4 


Luke,  3-101,  230-46  {contd.) — 
Connection  with  Corinth,  21,  35. 

Macedonia,  31,  34  ff.,  48. 

Criticism  of  method  in,  3,  8,  58, 

60,  64,  72,  76,  87,  91,  315  ;  see 

Luke  gen. 
Hellenism  of,  10  ff.,  15,  255. 
House  and  roof,  46. 
Inexactnesses  and  inconsistencies 

in,  alleged,  24  ff.,  28  f. 
Jerusalem,  76. 

—  and  Hierosolyma,  51,  76. 
John,  relation  to,  29  f. 
Mark  in  Luke,  39  ff.,  71. 
Marvellous  in,  8-10,  65,  251-59. 
Method  in    criticism,    see    Criti- 
cism. 

—  as  a  historian,  21,  34,  38. 
Omissions   from   his    authorities, 

238. 

Paulinism  of,  12. 

Physician,  4,  6,  16,  27,  56  ff. 

Roof  of  house.  46. 

Ship,  36. 

Source,  Lost  Common  Source  of 
Matthew  and,  71-101. 

Sources,  34,  38,  49,  55,  63,  73  f., 
78  ff.,  96  f. 

Speeches  in,  are  they  his  com- 
position ?  22,  83. 

Style,  34,  44.  47  f.,  50  f. 

Temptation  in,  256  ff. 

Trustworthiness   of,  4  f.,  315  f., 

327. 
Unity  of  authorship  in   his   two 

books,  6  f. 
Use     of     his     authorities,     see 

Authorities 
Viper  in  Malta,  63  ff. 
We-passages  in  Acts,  15,  27,  33  H., 

37  f. 
I  Women  in,  13,  30  f, 

II) 


412 


Index 


Miscellaneous — 

Agriculture,  179-98. 

—  directed  by  religion,  197. 
Alphabet,  see  Greek, 
Anthropomorphism,  251. 

Arabs  could    not    conquer    Asia 

Minor,  114  f.,  180  L 
Asia   and    Europe,    contact    of, 

105  ff.,  143. 
Asia  Minor,  situation  of,  105  f. 

roads  of,  107  ff. 

dividing  line  in,  112  ff. 

contrast  of  coast  and  in- 
terior, 113. 
Aulokrene  fountain,  108, 
Bull-god,  209. 

Clothes,  philosophy  of,  175. 
Coinage,  origin  of,  125. 
Commerce,  methods  in  Asia,  125. 
Criticism,  true,  seeks  excellences, 

not  defects,  260. 
Crusades,   influence  on   Europe, 

125. 
Earrings  worn  by  men,  206. 
Egoism  not  Egotism  in  literature, 

265. 
First  person  singular,  its  use  in 

exposition,  265. 
German  Method,  value  of,  263. 
Germans  do  not   read    Hawkins 
and  Hobart,  6. 

—  Dr.  Sanday  on,  261  ff. 
Greek  alphabet,  entrance  to  Asia 

Minor,  123. 

Hieroglyphics,  Hittite  or  Anato- 
lian, 127  f.,  159  f. 

Hired  labour  despised,  221  f. 

Huda-verdi,  132,  163  ff. 

Judaism,  freer  in  first  century 
than  later,  263. 

Khans,  185  ff. 

Landscape  of  the  plateau,  131. 

Legend,  nature  of,  100. 

Libation,  208. 

Lycaonia,  organisation  of,  332  f. 

Monotheism,  origin  of,  277. 

Morning  star,  crescent,  232. 

Nomadisation,  116,  181  ff.,  275  f. 

Nomads,  180  f. ;  in  Syria,  275. 

Old  Testament  criticism,  76  f., 
262,  277  ff. 

Organisation  of  Lycaonia,  332  f. 

Pelta,  349. 

Semitic  conception  of  God,  12  f., 
250-55,  280  f. 


Miscellaneous  [continued) — 
Tekmoreioi,  197. 
Tetrapyrgia,  187. 
Turkish  conquest  of  Asia  Minor, 
116,  181  ff. 

—  art,  185  f. 

Water  engineering,  129,  154,  164, 

179,  188,  193,  348. 
Women  warriors,  209  ff. 

Paul,  St.— 

Acts  XV.  and  Gal.  ii.,  28,  60  f.,  313. 

Architectural  metaphors,  294  ff. 
Athletics,  288-94. 
Citizen  rights,  25. 
Development  and  growth,  idea  of, 

287  f. 
Ephesian  Address,  22. 
Epistle   to  Hebrews,  relation  to, 
304,  309  ff. 

—  its  relation  to  Paul's  epistles, 

326  ff. 
Galatians  ii.,  i-ii,  28,  60  f.,  313. 

—  origin  in  teaching  of  Jesos, 

96. 
Hellenism  of,  15,  285-98. 
Language  of,  219,  285  ff. 
Luke,  his  physician,  27. 
Metaphors,  285-98. 
Military  metaphors,  294,  297. 
Name,  53  f.,  76. 
Quotations  from  Deut.  xxxit.,  i, 

326. 
Quoted  in  inscription  ?  407. 
Roman  citizenship,  25. 

—  metaphors,  297  f. 
Saul  and  Paul,  53  f.,  76. 
Veiling  of  women,  175. 
Width  of  education,  285. 

Religion,  Christian — 

Acts,  credibility  of,  22,  28,  60  £, 

87. 
Archiereus,  391,  403. 
Anatolian    languages    destroyed 

by,  146, 
Anthropomorphism  in  Bible,  251. 
Aristocratic     birth     of     Churck 

leaders,  187,  341. 
Asceticism,  400. 
Birth  of  Christ,  date  oi,  235,  243, 

246. 
Bishop  of  Laodiceia,  Lycaonia,  ia 

fourth  century,  153  f. 
Bishops,  350-60,  368,  385. 


Index 


413 


Religion,  Christian  {continued) — 
,       Book  or  tablets  as  symbol,  377. 
Byzantine  art,  145, 

—  Church,  143. 

deterioration  in,  161  f. 

Chorepiscopus,  356  f. 
Chronology  of  Gospels,  221-46. 
Church  architecture,  339,  346  ff., 
366. 

—  as     sepulchral     monument, 

156,  165. 

—  as  a  defensive  power,  157. 

—  door   on    gravestones.      See 

gravestone. 

—  Imperial  contribution  to  ex- 

penses of,  346. 

—  the    centre    of    social    life, 

153  ff.,  348,  364. 
Churches,  thousand  and  one,  at 

Barata,  155  ff. 
Clergy  and  laity,  387  f. 
Concealment  of  Christianity,  381, 

408. 
Continuity  of  pagan  ideas,  133, 

136,  138,  158  ff. 
Deacons,  363,  410. 
Diakonissa,  393  ff. 
Diocletian,  persecution  of,  342  ff,, 

397- 
Dove,  symbol  of,  385,  389. 
Elohim, Jehovah,  76. 
Epistle  to  Hebrews,  3or-28. 

athletics  in,  289,  291. 

Epitaphs,  272  fl.,  331-410. 
Evangelists  in  church,  368. 
Fig-tree,  227. 
Freedom  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus, 

92  11. 
Genealogical  expression  in  Bible, 

253  f- 
Gospels,  i-ioi,  219-46. 

—  later  elements  in  ?  14,  32. 

—  metaphors    from     life     and 

nature,  219. 

—  trustworthiness    of,    32,   87, 

i-ioi,  219-65. 

—  sources  not  recoverable  from 

internal  evidence  alone,  75. 

Grass,  sitting  on  the,  228  f. 

Gravestone  symbolises  a  church, 
and  the  tomb  is  a  church,  380, 
also  328,  330,  371,   376,    379, 

383- 
Greek  language  spread  by,  146. 
Hegoumenoi.     See  Leaders. 


Religion,  Christian  {continued) — 
Herald,  233. 
Heretics,  400  f. 
Hiereus,  355,  365,  387  f. 
Hierissa,  391  ff. 
Hospitality,  154,  354, 
Hypsistarii,  Hypsistiani,  401  ff. 
Industry  of  women  mentioned  on 

gravestones.  387. 
Inscriptions  of  Lycaonia,  150  ff., 

331-410. 
Italian  pilgrims,  316  f. 
Jerusalerr.,  Church  of,  division  in, 

313  ff. 

Jews,  relation  to  earliest  Chris- 
tians abroad,  317  ff. 

John  the  Baptist,  227  ff.,  232. 

Kingdom  of  God,  85. 

Latin   and   Greek   Church,  con- 
trast of,  144  f. 

Laity.    See  Clergy. 

Leaders,  separate  class  of,  in  one 
congregation,  313. 

Legend,  nature  of,  100. 

"  Light  of  the  World,"  231. 

Lycaonia,    Christian     in    fourth 
century,  152. 

Mark  and  the  type  of  a  Gospel, 
82  ff. 

Martj'rs,  395. 

Matthew,  4-101,  221-46. 
—  Logia  of,  80. 

Messenger  of  God,  13,  255. 

Ministry  of  Christ,  length  of,  234, 

Miraculous  element  in,  8  f.,  65, 

251-59- 
Misunderstood    at    the    time    by 

disciples,  89  ff. 
Morning  star,  230-46. 
Nineteenth  and  twentieth  century 

view,  contrast  of,  9  f. 
Official    titles,   growth    of,   369, 

384,  398. 
Oikonomos,  358,  369  f.,  393. 
Otkonomissa,  393. 
Open-air  life,  effect  of,  223  ff. 
Ornament,  367  f.,  370  ff.,  376  f.,. 

378  f.,  385,  399,  404,  410. 
Orthodox  Church,  143. 
its  alliance  with  the  Em- 
pire, 147. 

the  Church  of  the  people 

in  fourth  century,  152. 

pagan  survivals  in,  159  f., 

164,  174. 


414 


Index 


Religion,  Christian  {continued) — 
Pantokrator,  339  f.,  401  f. 
Papas,  373  f. 
Permanence  of  religious  feeling. 

See  Pagan  Religion. 
Physicians,  403  ff. 
Pilgrims  to  Jerusalem,  317  ff. 
Presbytera,     presbyterissa,     365, 

392  f. 
Presbyterian,  358, 
Presbyters,  351-65,  367,  370,  403, 
Q,  71-100. 

—  source     of     knowledge     of 

Christ's  teaching,  85,  97  f. 

—  date  of,  81-89,  97  f- 
Reinvigorated  the    Roman    Em- 
pire, 144. 

Revelation    of    John,    233,   378, 

406  f. 
Sabbatical  year,  236. 
Screens  in  churches,  347  f.,  379  ff. 
Soldiers,  342  ff. 
Spread  of  Christianity,  lines  of, 

134  f- 
Star,  230-46. 
Subdeacons,  356,  368. 
Symbolism  in  Bible,  250-59. 

—  in  art,  375  f. 
Tabernacles,  feast  of,  235-43. 
Teaching  of  Jesus  misunderstood 

by    His  disciples    in  His  life, 

89  ff.,  240  ff. 
Tekmoreioi,  197  f. 
Temptation,  the,  256  flf. 
Transfiguration,  237-43. 
Trmity,  396,  410. 
Unified  the  Empire,  148. 
Virgins,  386,  398  f. 
Verbal  criticism,  59  ff.,  262. 
Water  supply  at  churches,  348. 
Writing,  early  use  of,  98  f. 

Religion,  Mohammedan — 

Accepted  old  religious  sites,  132, 

133.  138.  175- 

Art,  185  f. 

Bektash  Dervishes,  155. 

Brotherhoods,  an  ancient  institu- 
tion, 155. 

Mosque  built  twice  at  Tyana,  114. 


Religion,  Pagan,  17 1-2 15 — 

Amazons,  200  ff. 
Anatolian  religion,  171-214. 

directed  agriculture,  197. 

Asian  influence  on  Greece,  128. 

Birth  and  death,  205. 

Bull  god,  209. 

Confession,  178. 

Continuity  of  religious  awe,  see 

Permanence. 
Divine  nature  as  feminine,  130  f. 

beneficence  of,  132. 

on  mountain  peaks,  136. 

Domestication  of  animals  through 

religion,  130. 
Ephesian  priest,  212  f. 
Eunuch  priest,  201-13. 
Feminine  element  in,  see  Mother- 
goddess. 
Grave  as  temple  and  church,  140, 

105. 
—  as  a  holy  place,  173  f. 
High-places,  159  f. 
Huda-verdi,  132,  163  ff. 
Megabyzos,  213. 
Mother-goddess,  130  f.,  203  ff. 
Permanence  of  religious  awe,  133, 
136,  138,  140,  159,  164  f.,  174, 
197,  336. 
Priest-king,  211. 
Religion  the  model  and  type  of 

earthly  life,  205. 
Sepulchral  religion,  140. 
Virgin-Mother  goddess,  134. 

Roman  Empire — 

Alliance     with      the      Orthodox 

Church,  147. 
Emperor  contributes  to  building 

of  church,  346. 
Hellenism,  its  place  in,  143. 
Lycaonia  Pro/ince,  332. 
Mines,  408. 
Reinvigorated     by     Christianity, 

144. 
Relation  to  Hellenism,  143. 
Slaves  of  the  Emperor,  408. 
Three    Eparchiae,     Province    of, 

332,  353-  ,.   . 

Unity  ot  the  Empire,  religious, 
148. 


NAMES. 


I.  Christian   and 
Biblical— 
Agabus,  25,  253. 
Amphilochius,  151,  349, 

356,  378. 
Anthousa,  353  note. 
Apollos,  301. 
Athanasius,     Bishop    of 

Tarsus,  353  note. 
Augustine,  12. 
Avircius  Marcellus,  341, 

350,  372. 
Barnabas,  20,  301. 
Basil,   151  ff.,   187,  354, 

356.  378,  384.  387. 389* 

404  f.,  411. 
Caliistus,  374. 
Clement  (Alex.),  234 nof^. 

—  (Rome),  310. 
Cornelius,  19. 
Cyriacus,  presbyter,  356. 
Elias,  237. 
Eusebius,  18,  65  f.,  342 

note,  345  ff.,  379,  389. 
Eutychus,  65. 
Gabriel,  255. 
Gregory,  401. 

—  of   Nazianzus,   151, 

401. 

—  of  Nyssa,  151,  187, 

401. 

—  Thaumaturgus,  374. 
Hermas,  355. 
Ignatius,  24,  293,  355. 
Jairus,  58. 

James,  240. 

John,  24,  133,  220-241. 

—  Baptist,  227  f.,  230  ff. 
Longinus,         presbyter, 

Lye,  356. 
Malachi,  233. 
Mammas,  Tribune,  156. 
Maria,  409. 
Mark,  4-101,  221-46. 


I.  Christian    and 
Biblical  {cont) — 
Mary,   Virgin,     13,     63, 

131,  133  f.,  197. 
Matthew,  4-101,  22X-46. 
Maximilian,  St.,  343. 
Michael,  158. 
Mnason,  19. 
Naaman,  20. 
Nathanael,  226  f. 
Nicholas,      Bishop      of 

Myra,   123. 
Nicodemus,  223. 
Origen,  234,  310  f. 
Papias,  80  f. 
Paulinus,      Bishop      of 

Tyre,  346. 
Peter,  55,  8i  ff.,  90,  237, 

240,  407. 
Phocas,  St.,  121,  123. 
Polycarp,  354. 
Pseudo-Justin,  374. 
Publius,  16. 
Stephen,  82  ff. 
TertuUian,  373. 
Theodoret,  313. 
Theodotus,  St.,  374. 
Theophilus,  Bishop,  375. 
Timothy,  288,  323,  363. 
Titus,  17  f.,  272,  287  f., 

407. 
Trophimus,  35. 
Tychicus,  35. 
Zacharias,  49  f. 

II.  Historical — 
Aeschylus,  11. 
Agamemnon,  124. 
Agrippa,  322,  326. 
Alexander  the  Great,  107, 

126. 
Al-Mamun,  114. 
Anna  Comnena,  180. 
Aristides,  67. 

(415) 


II.  Historical 

iconi.) — 
Augustus,  317. 
Barbarossa,  Kaiser,  in, 

166  f, 
Bismarck,  9. 
Caracalla,  Aurelius,  386, 

399- 
Claudius,  319. 
Constantine,  151. 
Croesus,  no,  215. 
Cyrus  the  Persian,  no. 
Diocletian,   152  ff.,  338, 

342  f.,  353  note,  397. 
Diogenes,    Governor    of 

Pisidia,  344. 
Dodanim,  254. 
Domitilla,  273. 
Domitian,  312. 
Elishah,  254. 
Eumenes,  187. 
Galerius,  345. 
Godfrey,  107. 
Hadrian,  Emperor,  133. 
Harun-al-Rashid,  114. 
Herod,  244. 
Herodotus,  125,  215. 
Homer,  367. 
Ibrahim  Pasha,  33  note. 
Javan,  sons  of,  254. 
Joannes  Cinnamus,  180. 
John  Comnenus,  181  note. 
Josephus,  67,  317. 
Julian,  392. 
Justinian,  133,  138. 
Kiamil  Pasha,  194. 
Kittim,  254. 
Licinius,  343  f. 
Lucretius,  24. 
Manlius  Consul,  108. 
Manuel,  no,  181  note. 
Maximian,  351. 
Maximin,  342  f.,  345  f,, 

368. 


4i6 


Index 


II.  Historical 

(cont.) — 
Memluk  Sultans,  117. 
Nearchos,  66. 
Nicetas  of  Khonai,  180. 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  220  f. 
Pindar,  11. 
Philip,  Emperor,  338. 
Philo,  294. 
Plutarch,  187. 
Porphyry,  280  note. 
Semiramis,   Mounds    of, 

206  note. 
Suetonius,  319. 
Tacitus,  274  note. 
Tarkuattes,  Priest  King, 

160. 
Tarshish,  254. 
Valeria,  Empress,  345. 
Valerian,  353. 
Valerius  Diogenes,  344. 
Verina,  Empress,  138. 
Xenophon,  119  £ 

III.  Modern  Scho- 
lars— 

Allen,  96  note. 
Anderson,  J.  G.  C,  360 

note,  370  note,  393. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  309. 
Bachofen,  204. 
Bell,  Miss  Gertrude,  155, 

159.  197- 
Bell,  Mr.,  244. 
Blass,  Prof.,  36,  47,  63. 
Blomfield  Jackson,  Rev., 

405  note. 
Calder,  W.  M.,  153  note, 

341.  350- 
Callander,  Prof.  T.,  360, 

366  note,  368,  409. 
Carruthers,      Mr.      W., 

F.R.S.,  223. 
Chantre,  209  note. 
Cronin,     Rev.     H.     S,, 

388  f.,  394,  396. 
Cumont,  Prof.,  353. 
Delitzsch,  322,  324. 
De  Rossi,  369,  373  note. 
Diamantides,  Savas,  396. 
Dindorf,  67. 

Dough  tyWylie,  Mrs.  ,174. 
Driver,  Dr.,  279. 
Foucart,  128. 


III.  Modern  Scho- 
lars {cont.) — 
Frankei,  68. 
Gardner,    Prof.    P.,    125 

note. 
Garstang,  Prof.,  397, 
Gelzer,  204. 
Gibbon,  no  note,  181. 
Grenfell,  67. 
Hamilton,  401. 
Harnack,  Prof.  A.,  i-68, 

305  tiote,  342  note,  373. 
Hastings,  Dr.,  130  note, 

177,  205  note. 
Hatch,  Dr.,  351, 354, 363. 
Hawkins,  Sir  J.,  5  f. 
Headlam,  Principal,  287 

note. 
Heberdey,  375. 
Herseus,  373  note,  374. 
Hobart,  5  ff.,  225. 
Hogarth,  113  note,  201. 
Holl,     Prof.,     146    note, 

151  note,  356  note,  379 

note. 
Hook,  Bryan,  64. 
Howorth,  Sir  H.,  181. 
Howson,  Dean,  285-89. 
Humann,  203. 
Hunt,  67. 
Jijlicher,  264. 
Keil,  349. 
Kenyon,  244. 
Knowling,  R.  J.,  17. 
Korte,  A.,  124. 
Layard,  232. 
Le  Blant,  369. 
Lewis,   W.   M.,  302   ff., 

324  ff. 
Lightfoot,  297,  305,  327. 
McGiffert,    Prof.   A.    C, 

5,  26,  303  ff, 
Mackinlay,  Colonel,  219- 

46. 
Maspero,  209  note. 
Milligan,    Dr.    G.,    303, 

307,  324- 
Mommsen,  144. 
Moulton,  Prof.  J.  H.,  51, 

60  note,  244  tiote,  245. 
Newton,  Sir  C.,  212. 
Paton,  W.  R.,  407  note. 
Perrot,  G.,  203,  204  note, 

2o5  ff.,  212,  214. 
Pfleiderer,  305  note. 


III.  Modern  Scho- 
lars {cont.) — 
Plummer,  Dr.,  237. 
Radet,  M.,  125,  405  note. 
Ramsay,  Miss,  175,  336, 

371.  378,  382,  392. 
Reichel,  Dr.,  160. 
Reinach,  A.  J.,  198  note. 

—  Theodore,  118  note. 
Renan,  277. 

Sanday,  Prof.  W.,  13, 98, 

249-65,  31S,  360,  374. 
Sarre,  187,  403. 
Sayce,  160. 
Schtirer,  9. 
Sloman,  A.,  64  note. 
Smith,  Cecil,  201,  212. 

—  Prof.  G.  A.,  269-81. 

—  Robertson,   77,  262, 

269. 
Souter,  Prof.  A.,  18  note, 

273- 
Steinmann,  264. 
Sterrett,  Prof.,  385  note, 

390,  405  note,  409. 
Strzygowski,  Prof.,  380. 
Thomas,    Rev.    Griffith, 

287. 
Tissot,  256. 

Trail,  Prof.  J,  W.  H.,  64. 
Usener,  353  note. 
Van  Soden,  305  note. 
Waddington,     68,     273, 

274  note. 
Weinel,  264. 
Weiss,  Bernard,  55. 
Wellhausen,  46. 
Westcott,  301  note,  302, 

306  note,  307,  310  note, 

311  f.,313  note, j,i6  note. 
White,  Rev.  Dr.,  of  Mar- 

sovan,  253. 
Whittall,     Mr.     Edwin, 

408  note. 
Wiegand,  Dr.,  347. 
Wilhelm,  375. 
Wilkinson,    72    note,   97 

note. 
Wilson,  Sir  Charles,  202, 

203,  207. 
Winckler,  127  note., 
Wood  (Ephesus),  133. 
Wordsworth,  Bishop,  311 

note. 
Wright,  A.  A.  G.,  273. 


Index 


417 


^     IV.  Pagan  Gods— 
^h^es  Pontarches,  121 

:♦•   f 

Apollo,  108,  167,  216. 
ArcUigallos,  207. 
Artemis,  197  f.,  201. 
Asbtaroth,  232. 
Athena,  108. 

—  works  of,  387. 
Atys,  211. 
Bacchus,  211. 
C>  bele,  207. 
Dipylon,  198. 
Htlena,  121. 
Heradeids,  68. 
H-3rades,  179,  211. 
Hermaphrodite,  206. 
Hermes,  13. 
Ida,  Trojan,  iig. 
Ipta  Meter,  215. 
Iris,  13. 
Istar,  232. 
Janus,  198. 
Kronos,  280. 
Lityerses,  108. 
Marsyas,  108. 
Mpther  goddess,  206. 
Omphale,  211. 
JPta,  215. 
Sabos,  211. 
Tekmoreian,  ig8. 
Venus,  232. 
Zeus,  II,  168. 

V.  Places — 
Achaia,  21  ff.,  35, 
Ak-Giol,    White    Lake, 

172. 
Akroenos,  137. 
Alexandria,  122,  374. 
Alkaran,  352,  360,  378, 

403- 
Amanus,  117  note. 
Anava,   the   Salt   Lake, 

107. 
Ancyra,  67. 
Anthios,  140. 
Antioch,    Pisidian,    no, 

134,  341 ;  Plate  XII. 
Antioch,    Syrian,    18  ff,, 

62,  66. 
Anti-Taurus,  114, 
Argos,  179. 

Aries,  Council  of,  344. 
Aurokra,  108  f. 


V.  Places  {cont.) — 

Bagdad  Railway,  138, 
188. 

Barata,  150  note,  155  ff., 
385  ;  Plates  XVI., 
XVII.,  XX. 

Basilika  Therma,  380. 

Bin-Bir-Kilisse.  See  Bar- 
ata. 

Black  Sea,  105. 

Boghaz-Keui,  127,  201 
ff.,  212  f.,  215. 

Bulgurlar,  172  note. 

BuUadann,  192. 

Caesarea  of  Cappadocia, 

114.  154.  357- 
Caesarea  Philippi,  239. 
Caesarea,   Stratonis,    19, 

320  ff. 
Capernaum,  40. 
Cappadocia,     153,     204, 

401  f.,  408  note, 
Caspian,  105. 
Caucasus,  105. 
Celaenae,  107  f. 
Cilician  Gates,  109  note, 

115,  139,  172  f.,  186. 
Comana,  210. 
Congoustos,  410. 
Constantinople,  n6. 
Corinth,  21  f.,  309. 
Crimea,  121. 

Cyme,  i^olic,  124. 
Cyprus,  19,  122,  134. 
Damascus,  20. 
Deghile,     140 ;     Plates 

XIII.,  XVIII.,  XIX. 
Derbe,  335,  385,  405. 
Deve-yuklu,  403. 
Dindymos,  119. 
Dinek,  360. 
—  Serai,  405. 
Dorla.     See  Isaura. 
Dorylaion,  107,  16G. 
Drya,  370. 

Egypt,  231,  236,  374. 
Eleusis,  373. 
Emir-Ghazi,  209. 
Ephesus,     21     ff.,     119, 

131  ff. 
Eregli,  172. 
Eski-Sheher,  107. 
Euyuk,  205  ff. 
Frahtin,  205. 
Galatia,  23,  27. 

27 


V.  Places  {cont)— 
Galilee,  40, 42, 239, 241  ff. 
Gennesarct,  44. 
Halys,  215. 
Hauran,  272. 
Herakleia,  172. 
Hermon,  Mount,  243. 
Hicrapolis,  109. 
Hierosolyma,  51,  53,  76, 

335- 
Hirakla,  Castle   of,  172, 

193- 
Holy  Land,  269-81. 
Huda-verdi,  132,  173  ff. 
Ibriz,    171,     193,     206 ; 

Plate  XXI. 
Iconium,   151  f,,  331  f,, 

356,  363.  402  f. 
Isaura   Nova  or    Dorla, 

335.  352,  360,  370,  372, 

376f.,37Sf.,385,  404f. 
Isaura  Palaea,  378. 
Jerusalem,  19,  25,  42,  51, 

53,  76,  81,  223,  238  ff., 

253.  320. 
Jordan,  227,  236. 
Judaea,  42,  244. 
Kara-Bunar,  189  note. 
Kara-Dagh,  163  ;  Plates^ 

XIV.,  XV. 
Kara-Hissar-Afion,   137^ 

140 ;  Plate  IV. 
Kases,  Kasis,  209. 
Keraraon  Agora,  120, 
Khadyn-Khan,  129. 
Khasbia,  209. 
Kizil  Dagh,  i6o. 
Korna,  378. 
Kybistra,  172, 
Laodicea,    153     f.,    331 

note,    335,    370,    381, 

398,  407  f. 
Laodicea,  burnt,  408  note, 
Leontopolis,  378. 
Leontos   Kephalai,   140, 

397 ;  Plate  X. 
Lerna,  179. 
Limnai,  197. 
Lycus,  107  ff. 
Lystra,  65,  216,  335. 
Macedonia,  23,  34  ff. 
Maden-Sheher.    See  Ba- 
rata. 
Maeander,   107  ff.,  119; 

Plate  II. 


4i8 


Index 


V.  Places  (conf.) — 
Malta,  64, 
Marsyas,  107. 
Melitene,  114. 
Mesopotamia,  no,  194. 
Miletus,  347. 
Mindana,  356. 
Mount  of  Olives,  223. 
Mycenas,  139. 
Myra,  122. 
Naro  in  Africa,  377. 
Nazareth,  40,  236. 
Nemrud,  232. 
Nevinne,  368. 
Nice,   Council    of,    349, 

.397- 
Nikopolis,  138. 
Obrimas,  107. 
Obruk,  409. 
Oxyrynchos,  67. 
Panhormos,  186. 
Palestine,    44,    46,    188, 

229,  243  f.,  269-81,  292, 

317- 
Paphlagonia,  117. 
Pegella,  138,  331  note. 
Perga,  134. 
Pergamos,  68. 


V.  Places  [cont.) — 
Pessinus,  211. 
Philadelphia,  157. 
Philippi,  27,  34,  46. 
Phrygia,  395. 

—  Galatic,  48. 

—  Asian,  48,  335. 

—  Upper,  67  f. 
Pisidia,  397. 
Plommeis,  370. 
Prymnessos,  67. 
Pteria,  214. 
Puteoli,  317. 
Rome,  23. 
Salonika,  375. 
Sarus,  172. 
Seleucia,  353  note. 
Serai-Inn,  398. 
Sinethandos,  331  note. 
Sinope,  121,  408  note. 
Sivri-Hissar,  138;   Plate 

V. 
Smyrna,  191,  195. 
Stymphalos,  179. 
Sultan  Dagh,  140;  Plate 

XII. 
Suwerek,  366,  406. 
Syracuse,  369  note. 


V.  Places  {com  ) — 
Syria,  107. 
Tabor,  243. 
Tarsus,    114,    120,    293, 

375- 
Taurus,  106,  112  fl.,  115 

ff.,  137. 
Temnos,  iig. 
Therma,  loS.      See  Ba- 

silika. 
Thessalonica,  33. 
Thyatira,  233,  400. 
Tomb  of  Midas,  139  f.; 

Plate  VIII. 
Trapesus,  120. 
Troas,  27,  34  f.,  48,  65, 
Tyana,  172. 

Tyre,  25,  346  ff.,  379, 381 
Tyriaion,  395. 
Ushak,  191. 
Verinopolis,      138,      331 

note. 
Yuruk-Keui,  385. 
Zazadin  Khan,  388,  394; 

Plate  XXIII. 
Zizima,  370. 


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